Symbols of Death
by Higuchimon
Summary: In his search to change his destiny, Saiou sets his sights on Marufuji Ryou. Does the duelist of power stand a chance to defeat the Society's two finest warriors or will he kneel before the Light?
1. Targeting Hell Kaiser

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing involved in this story unless I invented it myself. This is written for fun, not for profit.  
><strong>Fandom:<strong> Yu-Gi-Oh GX  
><strong>Title:<strong> Symbols of Death: 1-8: Targeting Hell Kaiser  
><strong>Characters:<strong> Ryou, Asuka, Saiou  
><strong>Word Count:<strong> chapter: 4,474||story: 4,474  
><strong>Genre:<strong> Drama, Friendship||**Rated:** PG-13  
><strong>Notes:<strong> This takes place during the Genex tournament, between episodes 90 and 91. For reference, Manjoume has left the Society of Light and Ryou has dueled Fubuki.  
><strong>Feedback:<strong> All forms eagerly accepted. Concrit is loved the most, but everything is welcome.  
><strong>Summary:<strong> In his search to change his destiny, Saiou sets his sights on Hell Kaiser. Does the duelist of power stand a chance to defeat the Society's two finest warriors or will he kneel before the Light?

* * *

><p>Saiou tried not to look at himself in the mirror these days. Mirrors reminded him too much of Mizuchi. That was the least of his problems, however. Seeing his reflection anywhere meant not actually seeing himself, but seeing that <em>other<em> him. _I won't let you win._

**As if you have a choice. This is your destiny.**That voice echoed in the vaults of his mind, smug and certain that nothing he could do could change how the winds of fate blew. The world would be bathed in light and it would be because of him, Saiou Takuma.

He closed his eyes, longing to rest for a moment. He wasn't surprised to see himself looking back at him. Identical in every aspect, save perhaps for that look in his eyes, but he _knew_ that it wasn't him. Not the real Saiou. **Do you really think after all you've tried that you can do anything to alter your fate? You failed to acquire the services of Yuuki Juudai. You can't even get his proper attention. Whereas I have everything that I need.**

Saiou knew what he-what _it_-meant. Orgene's SORA satellite, ready to destroy the world at a moment's notice, hovered overhead and the keys were in his possession. All it would take would be a moment's worth of effort to insert those keys, turn them, and let the world die in white fire.

"He'll stop you." Juudai could change destiny, when so few could. Juudai _had_ to help him. If only…if only he could find a way to tell Juudai what he needed. If only...

**Do you really think that would've worked?** Harsh amusement twisted the features of his interior double. **Those who accept the baptism of the Light belong to me as much as they belong to you. More so, in fact. He would've served _me_, not you.**

Saiou forced his eyes to open. He would not listen to this any longer than he had to. He had to find a way to touch Juudai, to get him to listen to his plea for help. Words couldn't do it. That inner beast, the Devil within him, would not let him say it out loud. He'd wanted to try ever since he'd moved permanently to the island, but couldn't so much as move his feet towards Osiris Red, much less open his mouth around Juudai.

**Perhaps one of your precious Society?** He wouldn't have thought that a creature devoted to the destruction of all life would be able to sound so mocking. Yet as he learned over and over, he was wrong about that.

Yet, that perhaps wasn't such a bad idea. If he sent one of the Society members to duel Juudai yet again, then perhaps…

Perhaps they would lose and the influence of the Light would be wiped from their mind. Another person to stare at him sidelong and consider him nothing more than a freak that shouldn't exist.

**And you wonder why I chose you.**

Saiou wasn't going to listen to this anymore. He reached for his Tarot deck. He trusted the cards over anything else. Their guidance would show him what he should do. He shuffled with ease; he couldn't remember a day in his life when he'd gone without doing this for some reason, be it to decide what direction he and Mizuchi should travel or for a client who wished to know his or her own future.

One card was all he wanted or needed, one that would tell him who he needed to look to in order to take the next step. In all truth, he didn't think there were that many people here at Duel Academia who could or would help. He might have to search for whoever could help, perhaps make another request of Samejima as he had for Orgene, but he would _find_ them.

He couldn't have said how he knew when he'd shuffled enough. It was a simple instinct, one trained and honed over the years, much like those of a duelist. He set the deck down on his table and placed one hand over it. The cards were warm to his touch, a good sign. His heart racing, he drew the first card and turned it over.

_Interesting._ This wasn't a card he drew very often, no matter what lay ahead of someone. More than one person feared it when it did come up. He laid his hand flat upon it and closed his eyes, casting his mind outward. _Someone who has undergone a great change recently. Someone who could be close to Yuuki Juudai._

The answer came in a spark of white and black. A duel he'd watched and enjoyed, as he watched all of Edo's duels, and duels that came after that. He saw a world torn down and rebuilt into a new shape.

So that was the answer. It did make sense, both in the card and in the person. For who was close to Yuuki Juudai who had died and been reborn in a sense of the word?

None other than Hell Kaiser Marufuji Ryou.

* * *

><p>Asuka pretended that she wasn't watching for any signs of black out of the corner of her eyes. Not that <em>Black<em> Thunder would dare to come anywhere near here, of course, not after his treachery, not openly. But she kept an eye out anyway, just in case he wanted to lurk in the area and try to convince some of them to abandon Saiou and the Light.

As if that would ever happen. She really couldn't imagine why he'd left them in the first place. He'd been the one who had opened so many of _their _eyes and now he'd returned to Osiris Red and that disgusting black jacket of his. It didn't make any sense.

"Tenjoin-kun." That voice cut through all of her worries as she rose and bowed to the guiding light of her life.

"What can I do for you, Saiou-sama?" Ever since Manjoume-kun had left the Society, she'd been his right hand, recruiting nearly the entire girl's dorm as well as watching out for those pro duelists who might make good Society members. Sadly, there weren't as many of those as she had once hoped.

He gestured for her to follow him as he turned his steps away from the Obelisk White building. She did so gladly, falling into step beside him. "I have a very special mission for you. One that I think you will enjoy."

Asuka's heart raced. "Whatever you command, I'll obey." Saiou-sama, through Manjoume-kun at first, had already given her so much. She would give back anything that she could.

"I'm certain you've heard that Hell Kaiser is on the island for the Genex tournament." Saiou spoke as he walked along the path that led around the lake. She nodded, wondering why he brought that up. She hadn't seen or spoken to Ryou in months. "I believe he could be of invaluable use to us in the Society, and of course, it would be so much better for him than being the way he is now."

Asuka shuddered; she seldom spoke to her brother these days, but she'd heard about the duel between the two of them. _Fubuki used Darkness's power and still couldn't beat Ryou._

That didn't mean she couldn't do it, though. Darkness could never defeat darkness. Anyone knew that. What you needed to defeat darkness was _light_.

"Exactly." Asuka couldn't help the hint of a shiver that flowed down her spine when Saiou-sama responded to her thoughts. That was a remnant of her own foolish past, she reminded herself. Saiou-sama was a person with great power who had deigned to guide her to wisdom. She shouldn't fear that power. He smiled at her. "You will have all the power the Light can give you in order to defeat Hell Kaiser." He paused for a moment, his smile widening just a bit. Others might've found the expression disturbing, but she saw the true kindness there. "He will thank you in the end."

"Of course, Saiou-sama." Asuka didn't doubt that for a moment. She'd been grateful to Manjoume-kun when he'd defeated her, after all. "When would you like me to duel him?" She would have to find him, but that wouldn't be hard. He'd never hidden himself from an opponent before and she doubted he would start now.

"The sooner he learns the error of his ways, the better." Saiou glanced away from her, his eyes distant, as if he listened to some inner voice. His eyebrows narrowed for a moment, then the expression soothed as if it had never happened at all. "It would also be wise to hone your skills on others first. Hell Kaiser is not an easy opponent."

"I know." Ryou had changed greatly, but no matter what, he was a duelist without peer. Deep within her heart pounded at the thought of dueling him again. They hadn't dueled one another in years, not since before her brother had returned.

Yet, the more she thought about it, the more she not only anticipated dueling him, the more she wanted to do so in order to show him the wisdom and strength of the Light. Fubuki had mentioned that Ryou entered the darkness to gain the strength for victory. _That strength is hollow, false, and I'll show him that. _She touched her dueling deck, knowing that within it lay the cards that could defeat him. She had White Veil, first and foremost. That would negate any and all trap or spell card he had set when she attacked, and she had plenty of powerful monsters that she could equip it to.

"I have faith that you'll succeed." Saiou-sama said. Asuka bowed quickly; she would indeed sharpen her skills on other duelists first, though. There was no need to rush off headlong into the fight and lose because she hadn't practiced hard enough.

"Before today is over with, there won't be a Hell Kaiser any more." Asuka knew that was true, if only because it was what Saiou-sama wanted. "He'll be the Kaiser of Light."

"I look forward to seeing him bathed in white, just as you are." Saiou-sama agreed. Asuka nodded, already thinking about which duelists she could challenge in order to be ready to fight her old friend. There were several who could be useful as test subjects. Saiou-sama gestured in dismissal and she hurried away to begin her search.

* * *

><p>Saiou watched her leave, one set of eyes and two different awarenesses focused on the situation. <em>Juudai is already worried about Hell Kaiser and his motives. This will force him to take action.<em>

**If she wins.** Truly, the idea of a malevolent force of the universe smirking was one that didn't set well with Saiou.

_How can she not? She has your power and mine to see the future._That was all she needed, wasn't it? It had worked for so many others he'd shared his gift with. Only a scant few could escape the baptism of light. Hell Kaiser didn't have the power that Juudai did or the dinosaur strength that Kenzan did. He was a simple human, more talented in dueling than most, but nothing more. He would be defeated in battle.

He would belong to the Society.

**And then he will belong to me.** Saiou could hardly ignore his own voice, even when someone else used it, but he had experience in trying, at least. Sadistic amusement tore through him at the thought. **We are one, Saiou. You want to destroy them as much as I do.**

Saiou tried not to think about that, too. He had what he wanted now. When he'd been _younger _he'd wanted to kill everyone who'd ever looked at him and Mizuchi funny. But now there were those who accepted his power, accepted that he was different, and did so without fear.

**And they do so because of me. Do you really think that any of them would respect you without me?**

Saiou knew better than to so much as look at any of the students who walked along the path. Some of them were his own servants, but at that moment, with those words burning into his mind, he couldn't stand the sight of them.

Because it was right. Infuriating as it was, none of them would respect him or even look at him without fear if it weren't for the baptism of light they'd all gone through. If it weren't for the _Light_, he would still be the foolish young fortune teller he'd been.

**And yet you want to change this. Why, Saiou? What could you achieve by getting rid of me? Do you think anyone would ever like you because of who you are?**

Warm blue eyes and silver hair flickered through his mind and the Light's laughter echoed with such force Saiou wondered why no one else heard it. **Edo? You think Edo would? When the only reason you ever tried to meet him was just to use him? No, Saiou. Accept the truth. You need me. You will always need me.**

The Light had no hands that weren't Saiou's, yet Saiou could've sworn that a hand touched his shoulder nevertheless. He did not look up. He would not see those eyes, his own eyes, staring back at him. **You are _mine_, Saiou Takuma. Forever.**

* * *

><p><em>I hate kids.<em> Kinjo Souta hurried through the crowd of students, pushing them out of the way when they drew too close to him. They were just children anyway. He'd graduated from high school _two years ago_. He was a _pro_. They weren't and most of them never would be.

Besides, it wasn't as if any of them, or their relatives, had been nice to him when he'd been there before.

They weren't who he wanted anyway. He stood up on the tips of his toes, head turning this way and that as he searched for that one. _How hard can it be to find someone nearly six feet tall and wearing black leather?_

Apparently harder than he'd imagined, since he'd searched two hours for Hell Kaiser and hadn't seen so much as a scrap of his hair. You wouldn't think it would be difficult to find someone with dark blue hair in this school, but he'd seen four different people who had it already and none of them were the one he wanted.

It was time to take more direct action. Kinjo grabbed one of the passing Red students and glared down at him, putting all of the intimidation of being twenty years old and a full-grown adult into his eyes. "Where's Hell Kaiser?"

"I don't know." The student stared back at him, eyes widening a bit. Kinjo liked that look on him. It was more interesting than most looks people directed at him. "You _want _to find him?"

That tone, the tone of one who'd just been asked where a potential killer was, pulled a grin from the professional duelist's lips. "Of course I do. You can't beat someone in a duel if you can't find them to duel in the first place."

"You think you're going to beat Hell Kaiser?" The student barked out an unpleasant sound that Kinjo decided was his version of a laugh. His appreciation of the student's fear of him dropped in a heartbeat. "I've seen what he can do. I don't think you've got a chance."

"I've seen what he can do too. I've got more of a chance than you think. You're more than welcome to watch me do it." Kinjo said, tossing his light brown hair over one shoulder. "I've wanted to duel him again for a long time. Even before he started calling himself 'Hell Kaiser' in the first place. He thinks he knows what being an anti-respect duelist is. Well, he's got a few things to learn from me about that! And I can't wait to start teaching him!" He'd practiced that speech for a while. Somehow, it didn't quite sound the same spoken out loud as it had in his head.

"Really." For all the time Kinjo had spent searching for Hell Kaiser, to hear that voice coming from behind him was a little startling. There wasn't any question on who had spoken, not with how the Osiris Red in front of him grinned now. He turned to face the black-clad duelist, a cocky grin spreading across his own features. This was it.

"Oh, yeah, really." Kinjo folded his arms over his chest and stared up at Hell Kaiser. There was a lot of up to look at, especially given Kinjo's own not exactly impressive height. _It's not fair. Why is he so tall?_ For that matter, why did he look that damned intimidating in that outfit? There were those who said Marufuji Ryou had been born to wear black leather. Kinjo wasn't so certain they were wrong. "You and I are going to duel, _Hell Kaiser._" He shoved every ounce of disrespect he could into his tone, expecting to get at least a twitch out of the other.

What he got was a duel disk being turned on. "As you wish."

Kinjo swallowed; he hadn't expected the duel to start this fast. Shouldn't there have been a few more taunts, perhaps at least Hell Kaiser wondering why he wanted to duel against him? For that matter, didn't he even _remember _him? Two years wasn't that long.

"If I win, I get all of your Genex medals. If you win, you can have all of mine!" He had thirty of them already, mostly gained from clearing out some of the weak fish from Osiris Red. That was how Genex worked. The strong survived and he was the strongest of the strong.

Granted, he hadn't yet challenged any of those weird students in white. He was certain he could defeat them, but just the way they stared at him as if he were a prime rib and they were hungry sharks made him nervous. Better to deal with his first target, and once his reputation for defeating the terror of the Pro Leagues spread around, he could finish those weirdos off and win Genex.

Then maybe he could get some decent sponsors and make enough money to get into an apartment large enough so he didn't have to step outside to change his mind.

Hell Kaiser's shoulders moved in a noncommittal shrug. "If you insist. I don't need medals."

Oh, now he'd done it. Kinjo decided he wouldn't just put this arrogant bastard away, he'd do it _fast_. Kaiser might get one turn, but there was no way he'd get a second. "I'm going first, then!"

He drew his cards, then another for the turn. Hell Kaiser didn't protest him taking it, which didn't surprise Kinjo at all. That was how he'd always played. _Probably wants me to summon a monster so he can summon his Cyber Dragon._ He'd heard the other had used a different deck against Tenjoin Fubuki, though. Still, it was his turn and he knew from a glance at what he'd drawn what he was going to do. _The cards want to finish him as much as I do._

"I activate Hinoko, inflicting two hundred points of damage to you!" It was one of his smallest weapons, little more than a pinprick, but Kinjo watched with pride as two spheres of energy formed in front of him and blasted across the field to knock into Hell Kaiser. Hell Kaiser stood there, cards in hand, a complete attitude of _waiting_ in his pose. Kinjo growled and pulled out a second card. If that hadn't worked, then maybe this would. "Next, I activate Fire Ball! Take five hundred more points!"

Five larger balls now hovered in front of him and he threw his hand out to send them soaring toward Hell Kaiser. Again the other's life points dropped and he had yet to react beyond the slight raising of one eyebrow. Kinjo ground his teeth. _I'm going to make him scream. If it's the last thing I do, I'm going to make him **scream**!_

"Great Fire of Day and Night!" As Kinjo slapped the card down on his duel disk, the faint image of a burning house appeared all around Hell Kaiser's side of the field. "_Eight hundred points of damage_! And you can't stop it!"

"Why would I want to?" Hell Kaiser replied, his voice as calm as a summer's day. "You're the one hurting yourself with this, Kinjo."

Oh, he was going to _pay _for that! There were still three more cards in his hand, and he had a purpose for all three of them. Another spell card made its appearance, calling up the image of a goblin pushing a cart. "Thief Goblin! Go steal five hundred of his life points and give them to me!"

The goblin rushed over to where Hell Kaiser stood and swiped one hand through his duel disk before he raced back to where Kinjo stood waiting. His holographic servant then shoved that same hand into Kinjo's disk, raising his life points. "Amazing act of grand theft, wasn't that?" Kinjo sneered. Hell Kaiser appeared on the verge of yawning.

"It was more like petty larceny in my opinion. Are you done yet?"

Kinjo considered discarding his duel disk and beating Hell Kaiser in the face. _He'd yell then. _Still, that might get him disqualified from Genex. Not to mention what his sponsors might say. They weren't the best, but they did somewhat frown on unnecessary violence. "I summon Gear Golem the Moving Fortress in defense mode!" A small, spike-armored robot appeared in front of Kinjo, arms folded to present an all but impenetrable defense. With twenty-two hundred defense points, it would be tough to beat, and even if he was, Kinjo wouldn't take any damage due to the monster being in defense mode.

_I doubt he can beat it anyway. The defense is too high for Cyber Dragon to destroy and what are the chances he could draw enough fusion material monsters to do anything else? It's just his first turn._ "I set one card face-down and end my turn." There. He'd used up every card in his hand to set this up, but victory would be his! _It was worth it. I couldn't have done it without doing that, anyway._His direct damage deck had won him every duel he'd played so far and he didn't see this one being any different.

Hell Kaiser drew his card and that was when Kinjo struck next. "Trap, activate! Fire Darts! I roll a die three times, and you lose life points equal to the total amount I roll times one hundred!"

"Get on with it, then." Hell Kaiser folded his arms across his chest again, a small hint of annoyance in his tone now. Kinjo smirked in anticipation. This was the best trick ever! A holographic die appeared in front of him and he gestured to send it rolling across the field. As it came to a rest, a glowing six shimmered at the top. Already, six hundred points of damage were in the air, and there were two more rolls to go.

The die bounced across the field a second time and a second six joined the first. _Twelve hundred! Twelve hundred points of damage!_ Kinjo could hardly contain himself. The trap couldn't do enough damage to finish Hell Kaiser off entirely, but it didn't need to. He would do that on his next turn. Even if Marufuji set a powerful defense monster, it wouldn't do any good. A simple sacrifice of eight hundred life points and his monster would end this duel in a blaze of glory.

For a third time, the die rolled, and a third six glowed in bright, uncompromising red. _I did it...I really did it. Maximum damage._ He'd never rolled that well before with Fire Darts. Fate was on his side today. Kinjo raised his head to stare into Hell Kaiser's eyes as three huge balls of flame swirled into existence before him. "Eighteen hundred points of damage, Hell Kaiser."

The three flame balls blasted across the field, each one slamming into Hell Kaiser and taking six hundred points from his total, until only two hundred remained. "This is what you call _disrespect_." Kinjo declared. The only thing that took the edge off his enjoyment was that Hell Kaiser still hadn't moved, much less uttered a sound of pain. What was it going to take to get through that icy façade?

"I don't believe this. This can't be happening." Kinjo wasn't surprised to look around and see several students and a few professional duelists gathered around. It was only his due, after all. _They're all going to see me do this! They're all going to see me defeat Hell Kaiser!_ This was everything that he'd ever wanted since his last year at North School, when Marufuji Ryou, a _second year_, trounced him thoroughly when he'd come to Duel Academia for the school duel. Kinjo had hardly had a chance to do anything before he'd been defeated.

_I'm going to get my revenge. He thinks he knows disrespect and dueling for power. He doesn't know anything. But he's going to. I'm going to slam disrespect down his throat until he chokes on it!_

Kinjo glanced over to where the Red student he'd grabbed watched, jaw very satisfyingly on the floor from Kinjo's lightning-quick devastation of the so-called unbeatable Hell Kaiser. Several others watched as well, including Yuuki Juudai, Manjoume Jun, and Marufuji Shou. That last one's gaze stuttered between the two duelists, worry and hope warring for dominance. _He's going to get to see me beat his big brother. He's going to love this, I just know it._

Could this day _possibly _get any better?

**To Be Continued**


	2. Casual Defeat, Casual Victory

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing involved in this story unless I invented it myself. This is written for fun, not for profit.  
><strong>Fandom:<strong> Yu-Gi-Oh GX  
><strong>Title:<strong> Symbols of Death: 2-8: Casual Defeat, Casual Victory  
><strong>Characters:<strong> Ryou, Asuka, Saiou  
><strong>Word Count:<strong> chapter: 4,172||story: 8,646  
><strong>Genre:<strong> Drama, Friendship||**Rated:** PG-13  
><strong>Notes:<strong> This takes place during the Genex tournament, between episodes 90 and 91. For reference, Manjoume has left the Society of Light and Ryou has dueled Fubuki.  
><strong>Feedback:<strong> All forms eagerly accepted. Concrit is loved the most, but everything is welcome.  
><strong>Summary:<strong> In his search to change his destiny, Saiou sets his sights on Hell Kaiser. Does the duelist of power stand a chance to defeat the Society's two finest warriors or will he kneel before the Light?

* * *

><p>The proverbial pin could've dropped and been heard over half of Duel Academy at the moment. Students, teachers, pro duelists, Society members and those who were not, everyone stared in stunned silence at what unfolded before them. No one had ever taken Hell Kaiser down to a mere two hundred points in just over a single turn. Not until Kinjo Souta.<p>

Hell Kaiser, however, didn't appear to even notice he'd lost a single life point at all. He examined his hand, gaze flickering up for a moment to look at his opponent. Shou, standing a short distance away, shivered at the sight of his brother's eyes.

"He's going to do something." The young Ra student murmured, clenching his fists over and over. He didn't like this. This wasn't _like_ his brother. But Ryou hadn't acted like a true respect duelist for months. Yet something about this disturbed him even more than the black outfit and the disregard for his cards and his opponent. This was something _worse_than being an anti-respect duelist. He just didn't know what to call it.

"Yeah, and it'll be awesome!" Juudai declared, his eyes bright with excitement. Shou glanced up at him and then looked back to Hell Kaiser. Sometimes he didn't understand either of them. He wished he could. It would make life so much easier.

They weren't the only ones watching this duel. Several members of the Society of Light watched every motion made by the two duelists. Two in particular stood ready to go report to higher authorities at a moment's notice.

"What do you think Hell Kaiser's going to do?" Mototani murmured to Torimaki, not taking his gaze away from either of the two duelists. "He's in a bind."

Torimaki folded his arms over his chest, nibbling one fingernail as he watched the dark duelist contemplating his first move. Hell Kaiser didn't appear worried at all. If anything, Torimaki would've thought he was trying to decide just _how_ to swat an annoying gnat, not barely clinging to even being in the duel. "I don't think he's going to lose." He couldn't have figured out how to pull off a win from this himself, but he'd seen the other duel more than enough times to know how good Hell Kaiser really was.

"From my hand, I fuse two Cyber Dragons to create Cyber Twin Dragon." Hell Kaiser made his move, and everyone who watched knew better than to breathe. Kinjo snorted and rolled his eyes as the image of two metallic dragons spun together to form one two-headed dragon in front of Hell Kaiser. He'd seen that before, when they'd dueled one another for the school duel.

"You think that's going to beat me? I'll still have a lot of life points left after it attacks and you've only got _two hundred_." Really, this was pathetic. If this was the extent of Hell Kaiser's power, Kinjo wasn't even remotely impressed anymore. He'd obviously fallen farther than he wanted to admit.

A thin bending of the lips was what passed for a smile on Hell Kaiser. "I told you that you were hurting yourself with all of your direct attacks on me, Kinjo. Now I'm going to show you why." He flipped out one of the three cards in his hand. "I equip Cyber Twin Dragon with Gigantic Transformation. Since my life points are lower than yours, my Cyber Twin Dragon now has _double_ his original attack points."

If silence reigned before, the grave alone could've equaled the sound now. Everyone there knew Cyber Twin Dragon's special effect, to attack twice in the same battle phase. Kinjo had nothing face-down, nothing in his hand, nothing but a defensive monster incapable of dealing with the massive amount of power moments away from being unleashed.

Kinjo swallowed, staring into Hell Kaiser's eyes, ice settling into his stomach and closing about his throat. He'd never seen someone like this before. He'd dueled Marufuji Ryou once, but this person who stood across from him was nothing like the duelist of respect. All of his own words about how he would teach Hell Kaiser the meaning of true disrespect rang hollow and empty in his ears now.

"Cyber Twin Dragon, first attack! Evolution Twin Burst!" Hell Kaiser gestured with one black-clad arm and his monster obeyed without hesitation, necks twining about one another to send a double blast at what Kinjo thought would be an invincible defense monster. Two thousand two hundred defense points were nothing to the mighty armored dragon, and the metallic defender vanished with a faint howl of pain. Hell Kaiser's lips lifted for a moment, and Kinjo scrambled for his deck, racing to place his hand there and surrender.

_He'd kill me if he could._ Certainty clamped around his heart. Hell Kaiser wasn't in his league at all, he knew now. His skill reached far beyond Kinjo's, in much the same way as the stars were above the deepest core of the earth. At the moment, living a quiet life hauling garbage somewhere far away from anywhere that involved dueling appealed to him more than anything else. "I sur-"

"Cyber Twin Dragon, second attack! Evolution Twin Burst!" Two heads reared back and the blast shot forth, blazing into Kinjo and sending him falling backward. In one strike, his life points dropped from four thousand five hundred to zero. Hell Kaiser stood there for a moment, his expression unreadable, before he gathered up his cards and started to turn away. Still no one moved. No one wanted to take a chance that he might decide to challenge them.

"Wait…" Kinjo pushed himself back to his feet, weaving as he did. He reached into his jacket and pulled out his Genex medals, spilling them on the ground in front of himself, his hands shaking in spite of himself. "You won those." Now he was going to have to leave the island and head back to the Pros. Or at least leave the island. Where else would a duelist of Hell Kaiser's caliber go once this tournament was over but to the Pros? The chance of seeing him again across the dueling field wasn't one Kinjo wanted to take anymore.

Hell Kaiser glanced down at the medals, each one glittering in the sun. He turned away once more. "I've said it before. I don't need these."

Kinjo's eyes blazed with fury as he tried to take a step forward and just managed not to pitch himself on the ground. He couldn't let this go without saying something. He couldn't just _lose_! "What are you talking about? You won those from me! What, did you think it was just some fluke or something?" He moved closer again, his legs shaking, but anger lent him a few scraps of strength, enough to get closer to the other duelist. "_Is_that what it was? You just so happened to get two Cyber Dragons and everything else? What else did you have?"

Hell Kaiser lifted one eyebrow before he pulled the top two cards from his deck, which were the last two that he'd had in his hand. He flipped them around without bothering to look.

Now there was sound: a collective gasp from all those who could see what he'd drawn. Kinjo slumped down, all of his strength failing at that. No more. It was over. Every hope he'd ever had of making it as a pro faded and died.

The third Cyber Dragon and Power Bond. _He could've used Cyber End Dragon on me. He could've had it at sixteen thousand attack points._ He wasn't even worth Hell Kaiser's disrespect.

Hell Kaiser walked away without looking back. Kinjo sagged down, drawing in as much air as he could, and closed his eyes. This was not the day he'd thought it would have been.

As Hell Kaiser left, Shou followed his brother with his eyes, teeth worrying at his lower lip. _I'm going to have to duel him soon. _He wasn't ready yet. He still had so much more that he needed to learn. But it was going to happen. "Did you see? He didn't even use those new dragons of his." He remembered every duel that he watched; it was a talent he'd worked to perfect for years. He'd had to re-watch Fubuki-san's duel against his brother a few times on his PDA to get all of the details into his head, but he knew new monsters from old ones without that much effort, especially when it came to his brother's deck.

"I know. I wonder why not." Juudai shrugged some before he clapped Shou on the shoulder. "Hey, want to go see if we can find some other duels to watch?"

"Sure!" Shou pushed aside his nervousness; his duel with his brother would come soon enough, and the best way that he could learn how to beat him would be to watch other duels. You could learn the most amazing things by watching other people, he'd figured out. That was why he'd fought so hard to learn how to memorize other people's duels. Maybe someday he'd even be strong enough to beat Juudai if he watched him duel enough times.

Together the two of them wandered off, leaving the other spectators behind. Kinjo slipped away into the crowd, joining the ranks of those who had lost Genex. The Society of Light members scattered as well, some searching for their own duels, some with other missions on their minds.

But one among those spectators, who'd stayed a bit farther back from the others to watch more carefully, followed Hell Kaiser as he moved his way through the crowds. Students and duelists alike parted for them both, but for different reasons. No one wanted Hell Kaiser's attention on them.

Nor did anyone want Tenjoin Fubuki to frown, for any reason whatsoever.

_He knows I'm here._ Fubuki knew Ryou down to the core of his bones, even with all the changes the other had experienced. Ryou was still Ryou, in his opinion, just with better fashion sense now.

Granted, given that Ryou was wearing black leather on a tropical island, perhaps the better fashion sense part could be reconsidered. At the very least, Fubuki admitted to himself that the ensemble looked very good on his old friend.

"Did you want to talk or were you going to stand there admiring yourself all afternoon?" Ryou asked without warning. Fubuki, seldom taken off guard, flashed him a grin.

"Who wouldn't want to admire me all afternoon?" Fubuki found himself a convenient tree to lean against and did so. "Other than you, of course."

Ryou only rolled his eyes as he shot a look toward the other. They hadn't spoken until now since their duel just after Ryou's return to the island. "Did you want a rematch?"

"No. You beat me, fair and square. Found out what I wanted to know, anyway." Fubuki grinned, secure in the knowledge that his friend wasn't lost in the darkness. He knew just where he was in it. "But there is something I wanted to talk about."

That got a hint of a raised eyebrow, which might have confused some. Fubuki knew Ryou's body language well enough, though. He still said nothing for a few moments, putting everything together in his mind. When he did speak, all of his humor fell away from him.

"I'm worried about Asuka." He dug his fingers against the tree bark, sensing the weight of Ryou's gaze on him. "She's been acting strangely ever since she lost a duel to Manjoume-kun about six months ago."

"And you're just now being worried about her?"

Fubuki shook his head, still gripping the tree. He didn't let just anyone see how worried he was about her, but Ryou was a special case. "I've been worried since it started, but I don't _know_ what's happened to her. But it's happened to just about everyone. Manjoume-kun, Misawa-kun, almost all of Obelisk Blue, Ra Yellow, Osiris Red. There are maybe twenty or thirty students who aren't like that."

"Like what?" Even as he asked, Ryou knew the answer. He'd seen the change as soon as he'd arrived. It was impossible to miss. Fubuki answered anyway.

"The Society of Light."

* * *

><p>Dark hair, dark eyes, skin burned dark by the sun…Higa Tomomi <em>needed<em>to belong to the Society, in Asuka's opinion. Of course, Asuka knew that everyone needed to belong there. Higa just needed it more than many others did.

"I challenge you to a duel for Genex!" The Society's second in command declared, cornering the older woman. Higa, a professional duelist, raised an eyebrow in her direction.

"Do you really think you want to do that, little girl? I've won five tournaments and placed in the top five of three others. I've got thirty medals from Genex, and I don't see any way that you can stop me from going all the way."

Asuka's lips had forgotten how to smile in the kind way she had before. Instead, she smirked, full of the pride of being in the Light. "Then let me show you, unless you're afraid to duel someone like me."

"I'm not afraid to duel anyone!" Higa swung her arm out and activated her duel disk in a single motion. "You want the first move, kid, or should I take it?"

Asuka drew her cards, already aware of what Higa could play against her. The Light's wisdom told her everything she needed to know, just as it had once told Manjoume. "I will, thank you. I play Machine Angel Ritual and discard a monster from my hand to Ritual Summon Cyber Angel Benten in attack mode!"

Energy spun before her, forming into the masked warrior that was one of the crowns of her deck. Long black hair flowed around Benten as she posed before Asuka, her battle fan at the ready. _My Cyber Angels will win this duel for me in the end. _Asuka had no doubt about that. "Turn end." Everything was already in place for victory.

Higa eyed Cyber Angel Benten. "That's all you're going to do? One little monster? You're not setting anything?"

"If you think you can do better, you're more than welcome to." Asuka replied, her lips curving in a smile that sent chills down the spines of those who knew her. _I look forward to seeing what her demon deck can do._ Of course, she knew what it would do in the end was 'lose'.

"Then I will." Higa drew her first card and turned it around. "I activate the Cheerful Coffin, sending three monster cards from my hand to the graveyard!" As the spell card activated, a creature in a violet suit appeared before her, holding an open coffin in its arms. She extracted three cards from her hand and tossed them inside. "Candle of Fate, Whiptail Gargoyle, and Darkness Demon Nightmare are all of more use to me there than anywhere else, once I summon _this_!"

She drew out another card and set it on the Duel Disc. "Come out, Dark Assassin!" Dark clouds formed in front of Higa and from the center of them there leaped a tall, dark-armored warrior who held a gleaming dagger in one hand. Green-edged blades shone on his forearms and lower legs and the way he grinned promised death to those who opposed him.

"Dark Assassin is a very special monster. His effect changes depending on how many Dark-type monsters I have in my graveyard." Higa told Asuka. "Since I have three there now, he gains four hundred extra attack points: more than enough to finish off your little angel there."

Asuka's smile hadn't faded for a moment. Let this so-called demon duelist play her games. She knew what would happen in the end.

"So that's what's going to happen! Dark Assassin, destroy Cyber Angel Benten!" Higa ordered. Dark Assassin crouched low for a moment, cape swirling, before he leaped into the air and landed behind Benten, who whirled to stare him in the eyes. She had only a moment to do so before his knife pierced her chest, sending her straight to the graveyard. Two hundred of Asuka's life points vanished in the same moment. "Turn end."

Asuka tilted her head for a moment. "I thought you were going to do better than I did."

"Just play." Higa snapped. "We'll find out who's better once this is over."

"So we will." Asuka drew her card. _Just what I wanted. _"I summon Etoile Cyber, set a facedown card, and end my turn." Even if she'd needed to, she couldn't have attacked this turn. Etoile Cyber's attack wasn't able to overcome Dark Assassin's.

Not that she would need to.

Higa eyed the situation, then shrugged and drew her card. "The cards aren't doing very well for you, are they?"

"You'd be surprised." Asuka replied. "How are they doing for you?"

"Better than you think, I'm sure. Dark Assassin, take out this monster of hers!" If the attack hit, Asuka would suffer another eight hundred points of damage. Once again, Higa's monster prepared to strike.

This time, Asuka had other plans for the battle. "Trap, activate! Doble Passe! I take Dark Assassin's attack to myself, and Etoile Cyber can then attack you directly!" Asuka cried out, one hand pointing to her facedown card. Dark Assassin, already leaping toward Etoile Cyber, overshot her monster and drove his blade into Asuka's chest instead. She held back a scream of pain, concentrating instead on what Etoile Cyber did. "When Etoile Cyber attacks directly, her attack goes up by six hundred points!"

The moment Dark Assassin was back on Higa's side of the field, Etoile Cyber spun into action. The beautiful ballerina leaped forward and struck Higa with one powerful foot, knocking her back several yards as the blow connected. Higa shook her head and straightened up. Asuka wasn't surprised that the pro duelist wasn't going to let that bother her. She wanted her to at least put up _some_ fight.

"If that's the best you can do, then you're going to lose this duel, kid. Turn end."

Asuka drew a card. "When this duel is over, you'll think differently." Because when it ended, Higa would be one of the Society of Light. She set another card facedown and ended her turn. She could feel other eyes on her and a quick look up showed a familiar dark-clad figure standing in the bushes not that far away. _Manjoume-kun._ She refused to let herself feel anything but contempt for him.

Let him see her duel. Let him see the glory that he'd cast aside and the power of the Light once more. Let him know the mistake he'd made that could _never_be corrected.

She turned her attention back to the duel. Higa grinned when she saw the card she drew for her turn. "I don't think I will, little girl. But let's find out. If you're going to play with the angels, then I'm going to bring out a demon! I activate the Ritual Spell card Devil's Mirror Ritual! And for the tribute, I send Ritual Offering from my hand to the graveyard! It's only a level one, but with its special effect, I can use it for the entire tribute if I'm summoning a Dark-type monster. Conveniently, that's exactly what I'm calling out!"

A strange, two-faced birdlike creature appeared in front of Higa. It stayed there alone only for a second before two demonic blood-stained hands rose up from the ground, bearing a mirror in between them. One of the hands seized the creature and threw it through the mirror. As soon as it passed through, the mirror itself began to glow, reshaping from a rather simple form to a far more elaborate design, all sharp edges and dark wings. Various Society members murmured in disgust at the sight of it, so anathema to all that they believed in.

"I summon the Devil's Mirror!" Higa declared, a savage edge to her tone. It surpassed anything Asuka had used in this duel so far for attack points, though it had no special effect at all. Not that Higa felt it needed it. The duel would end soon enough. "Now, attack her Etoile Cyber!" If only Devil's Mirror could attack twice in a turn, such as Cyber Twin Dragon or Falcon Knight. If that were so, then this duel would be finished now.

_I can wait a turn. _Higa watched as Devil's Mirror shot out a beam of energy that struck Etoile Cyber in the chest, sending her screaming to the graveyard. There was nothing Asuka could do that would change this duel anyway.

"Trap, activate!" Asuka pointed to her facedown and Higa's eyes widened. What did this infuriating girl have in mind _now_? "Rival Appearance allows me to summon a monster from my hand that is of the same level as your monster! Your Devil's Mirror is a Level Six, so I summon the Level Six Cyber Prima!" Tight-fitting gray leather clung to the body of the silver-haired warrior who now rose up before Asuka. "Cyber Prima's attack is twenty-three hundred: two hundred more than your Devil's Mirror." Asuka noted as Higa stared at the new arrival, worry flickering in her expression. "Is there anything else you want to do this turn?"

Higa shook her head mutely; she'd taken Asuka down to nine hundred life points but in return, the other duelist had summoned one _powerful_ monster. _She can't win. I won't let it happen._ Though now, Higa wondered if there was anything that she could do to stop it. _She only has two cards in her hand, and I still have over two thousand life points. What are the odds that she can summon something that can finish me and Devil's Mirror off this turn anyway?_ Slim, of course. She could still win. It wasn't over yet.

Asuka glanced only briefly at her newly drawn card; while Fusion would be useful in some situations, she'd had the one she needed to finish this duel in her hand from the beginning. "I activate Fulfillment of the Contract. By paying eight hundred life points, I can Special Summon a Ritual Monster from my graveyard!" If Higa destroyed the equip card, then the monster she summoned would be destroyed as well. Asuka knew there was no chance of _that_ happening. Higa had nothing on her field and nothing in her hand to counter this. "I summon Cyber Angel _Dakini_!"

Higa's eyes widened and she took a step forward. "When did _that_ go to your graveyard?" Hadn't Asuka summoned _Benten _before? Shouldn't it just be Benten and Etoile Cyber in her graveyard?

That same cold smile lit Asuka's features. "You should know this. Cyber Angel Benten needed a tribute of a monster level six or higher. Cyber Angel Dakini is level eight. She's what I discarded. And she's what I'm calling back now!"

A blue-skinned, four-armed warrior now stood in front of Asuka, two of those arms holding a long spear, while the other two held a sword each. "When Cyber Angel Dakini is Special Summoned, then my opponent has to choose one of her monsters to destroy. Which one is it, Higa? Dark Assassin or Devil's Mirror?"

Teeth grinding, Higa's gaze shifted between the two. She had no more cards in her hand and neither of her monsters had any effects that could help. It didn't matter anymore. No matter how she built probabilities in her mind, it was over. "I choose Dark Assassin." In a moment, the demonic warrior was gone, burst into flames by Dakini's power.

"This is the kind of duel that only one of the Society of Light can have." Asuka spoke quietly. "This is _my_ duel. Cyber Prima, attack Devil's Mirror! The Ending Reverence!" Holographic glass shattered over the entire field as Cyber Prima spun into the evil mirror, destroying it with a single strike and diminishing Higa's life points by two hundred. Asuka wasn't done yet, of course. "Cyber Angel Dakini, direct attack!"

And for Higa Tomomi, everything turned white.

**To Be Continued**


	3. Requests and Offers

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing involved in this story unless I invented it myself. This is written for fun, not for profit.  
><strong>Fandom:<strong> Yu-Gi-Oh GX  
><strong>Title:<strong> Symbols of Death: 3-8: Requests and Offers  
><strong>Characters:<strong> Ryou, Asuka, Saiou  
><strong>Word Count:<strong> chapter: 4,195||story: 12,841  
><strong>Genre:<strong> Drama, Friendship||**Rated:** PG-13  
><strong>Notes:<strong> This takes place during the Genex tournament, between episodes 90 and 91. For reference, Manjoume has left the Society of Light and Ryou has dueled Fubuki.  
><strong>Feedback:<strong> All forms eagerly accepted. Concrit is loved the most, but everything is welcome.  
><strong>Summary:<strong> In his search to change his destiny, Saiou sets his sights on Hell Kaiser. Does the duelist of power stand a chance to defeat the Society's two finest warriors or will he kneel before the Light?

* * *

><p>"The Society of Light." The words left a taste on Ryou's tongue that reminded him of sunburns and eyestrain. Though from what he'd seen of the Academy students involved in it, those words inspired thoughts of warm summer days and passionate devotion.<p>

Fubuki nodded, his normal enthusiasm damped down a little in a way that few ever saw. "It all started with Manjoume-kun a few days after Juudai came back and dueled Edo again. He'd already been wearing a white uniform and going on about the Society of Light for a month anyway. No one thought there anything to worry about." Fubuki shrugged, regret tingeing his words. "But that day, Manjoume just…took over all of Obelisk Blue and turned it into Obelisk White. I think it took him maybe a couple of hours to duel them all and he didn't lose a single duel. Then he dueled Asuka after she and everyone else came to find out what he was doing and once he beat her, she was just like he was. Completely devoted to this Society." Fubuki heaved a quasi-theatrical sigh. "Instead of to something that makes sense."

Ryou glanced over at his friend. In all the years he'd known Fubuki, he'd only seen him this depressed a handful of times. Of all of those times, none were as bad as this. "What do you expect me to do about it?"

Fubuki rolled his eyes. "How should I know? If I can't get through to her, then I doubt _you_ could. But she might talk to you at least." His eyes dropped away for a moment with a hint of unaccustomed seriousness. "She used to tell me everything, before. But she doesn't anymore. It's just gotten worse since she became one of them."

Before. Before Fubuki vanished at the start of their second year, before he attacked the school while possessed by Darkness. Before Asuka had to live a year and a half without the brother she adored and admired

It still wasn't his problem. He had victories to win and didn't have the time to poke into everyone else's life. People had to stand or fall on their own. It was the only way anyone learned anything that mattered.

He glanced at Fubuki, ready to tell him this. Fubuki stared down at the ground, his usual cheer still gone.

_He doesn't want to hear that._ Fubuki championed the cause of love and friendship more than most people. Telling him anything else would devastate him.

Ryou considered what he'd asked. It wouldn't do any harm to talk to her, no matter what. She wouldn't be the first person who had changed her entire outlook on life due to having lost a duel. Nor, he thought, would she be the last. Finding out if that was the reason would be simplicity itself.

"They're all devoted to Saiou Takuma as well." Fubuki spoke again, apparently not expecting Ryou to answer just yet. "When we all went to Domino City, they followed after him as if he held a leash on them all." He rubbed his eye for a moment before he spoke again. Ryou found the light gleaming off the water worthy of his attention. "She didn't say anything when they beat me up, either. She just watched. Like she didn't care. Like I wasn't her brother at all."

The name Fubuki spoke struck a bell deep in Ryou's mind. "Saiou Takuma. He's Edo Phoenix's manager, isn't he?" He would have a rematch against Edo one day. He didn't know when, nor if it would even be during Genex, though the thought was tempting. But the rematch would happen.

"Yeah." Fubuki rubbed his eyes again and Ryou fastened his own gaze on a tree some distance away. There wasn't any need to bring what he saw there up. "He came here a couple of months ago and registered as a third year student. Not that I've ever actually seen him going to class or anything. None of the teachers seem to care either. He can do anything he wants. And he usually does."

He sighed and slumped against his tree once again. "I don't understand any of this. Manjoume-kun left the Society a few days ago, but it's like he doesn't remember most of what he did. He hasn't said anything if he does." His eyes narrowed for a moment. "I went to all of that trouble to help him win my little sister's heart and this is how he repays us?"

Ryou paid little attention to Fubuki's grumbling now. His thoughts circled around what was actually important: the leader of the Society was also the manager of a talented pro duelist. "What is this group about?"

"No one knows, or if they do, they're not talking. They just say a lot of things about being united in the Light and serving their precious Saiou-sama." Bitterness didn't become Fubuki, Hell Kaiser decided. "They do tend to go after the better duelists, though, and any time…wait." Fubuki pointed a short distance away. Two students, one in a Red uniform, the other in a Yellow, stood there, caught up in their own conversation. Approaching them now was a third, this one in white. "It's better if you see it for yourself. This is what happened to everyone who's in the Society."

Hell Kaiser lifted an eyebrow, but Fubuki said nothing else, only indicated for him to watch. Words drifted across the lake, thin and hard to hear, unless one kept quiet and listened intently.

"Well, Endo? I've challenged you every day for the last week." The student in white spoke, her arms folded across her chest. "Are you going to duel me or not?"

"Kaede…" The student in Red shifted a little nervously, his gaze flickering across to the Yellow student, who just shook his head. Ryou was too far away to truly read their expressions but the voices told him what he needed to know.

He also remembered Hara Kaede, a second year now. _She runs a dark warrior deck. Reasonably skilled._ He wondered if she'd improved any. It might be worth trying to find out himself. He didn't recognize the two students she was talking to, though.

"I'll duel you." Endo finally replied, taking out his deck and duel disk. "And if I win, then you'll stop being one of the Society, okay?"

Kaede's laugh held almost no humor in it at all. "If you win." She took the first turn, wasting no time at all, and Hell Kaiser's every scrap of attention focused now on the dueling.

She _had_ improved, without a doubt, and changed her deck as well. Once composed of warriors and beast-warriors, mostly of the Dark-type, she'd rebuilt it completely. It still centered on warriors, but now those of the Light fought by her side. _Interesting._

The duel took far less time than he would've thought it would, given that the Osiris Red had one of the stronger decks he'd seen from those in that dorm. Yet in the end, Kaede brought down her opponent with only a few scratches to her life points. Endo collapsed, trembling from head to foot, while Kaede put her deck away and smiled down at him.

"Do you see the error of your ways now, Endo?"

Endo looked up, his eyes wide and bright even from the distance Ryou stood at. "I do, Kaede. I'm sorry." His former opponent walked over to him and held out her hand, pulling him to his feet. "Thank you so much." Without either of them looking at the Yellow student again, the two headed away in the direction of Obelisk White.

Fubuki nodded as Ryou glanced back at him. "That's what happens most of the time when someone loses against a member of the Society. Not always. I hear Kenzan-kun lost against Saiou and still didn't join it." He looked as if he were about to say something else, but didn't.

Ryou nodded, already turning over the implications of that in his mind. Lose a duel, lose oneself in the Society. "Are they all that good at dueling?" For certain values of 'good', of course. He was certain he would be able to defeat Kaede if he had to. But there were better duelists than her in the Society.

_Of course there are. Asuka's there._

"I guess. I haven't paid that much attention to it." Fubuki shrugged and pushed himself away from the tree. "I've been more worried about Asuka."

"Of course." That shouldn't have surprised him. Fubuki loved dueling, but he loved his sister more. Ryou considered his options. He knew what Fubuki really wanted, even if the other wouldn't say it out loud. _Help my sister. _He could read it in every motion Fubuki made, every twitch of his eyelashes. "Who would you say is the best duelist they have?"

Fubuki caught his eye for a moment, a quirk to his lips that read to Ryou as if his friend wondered if Ryou had lost his mind. "Why?"

"Because I'm going to duel whoever their best is." Asuka was almost a grown woman. She could make up her own mind about who she followed or if she followed anyone at all. She didn't need his help or anyone else's. If she did, she could damned well ask for it herself. Dueling her would tell him more than just talking to her would as well.

That drew a long-suffering sigh from Fubuki. "Since Manjoume-kun left, I think their best _is_ Asuka. Either her or Saiou. I haven't seen him dueling anyone myself, but I've heard it happens. Take your pick."

To win a duel against an opponent that could change him so much if he lost. _Stakes like that are hard to come by. _The more he considered the matter, the more it appealed to him.

"Ryou, I know that look in your eyes. You're going to challenge her, aren't you?" Of all the stupid questions he'd ever heard, that was at the top of the list.

"Of course I am. And I'm going to win." And should he lose, then he would still win. No one could ever tell him what to do. He was _Hell Kaiser _and he walked his own path, no matter what. But the promise of a duel with such high stakes called him nevertheless.

Fubuki seized his arm, his grip tight with fear. "Ryou, these people are dangerous. Didn't you notice? They're controlling people's minds. That's the only thing that makes any sense. I don't know _how_, but that's what they're doing." He shook his head. "I don't want you becoming like Asuka."

"Do you really think anyone can control me if I don't allow it?" Hell Kaiser let one eyebrow creep up. Surely Fubuki, of all people, would know him better than that.

Fubuki stayed where he was for a moment, then dropped Ryou's arm. "No, I don't." He hesitated, as if about to say something else, then pulled out his PDA. "Before you do anything, watch these duels. If you're going to challenge the Society, then you should know what they can do."

Hell Kaiser considered just leaving; researching his opponents had never been his style. But the look in Fubuki's eyes, that raw fear from _Fubuki_ of all people…if nothing else, it might be interesting to see what the Society was capable of.

"Here." Fubuki handed the PDA over to him. "I set it up to show you Manjoume-kun's duels against Asuka and Misawa-kun, hers against Sommelier Parker, and a few others from when she dueled against the girls of the Blue dorm." He adjusted himself against the tree again, but kept his attention firmly fixed on Ryou.

He looked down at the PDA and shrugged to himself. There was nothing like watching a good duel, even when he didn't care about who won. He made himself comfortable on a convenient rock and started the first video.

_They've both improved._ Manjoume's tactics in revealing his entire hand to Asuka was a masterful stroke, throwing her off her game almost from the first turn. It wasn't a method he could use, but he appreciated skill when he saw it.

As the duel unfolded on the small screen, Ryou watched Manjoume's moves closely. This was the kind of strength he would be going up against and the more he considered fighting Asuka, the more he wanted to know what he would face doing so.

_White Veil._ That was a card he'd never seen or heard of before, yet he recognized all the other cards Manjoume used from other duels he'd seen him play. _Interesting effect._ There had to be a drawback to it. Nothing came without a price.

Fubuki said nothing as he watched each duel. Ryou sneered at the ending of Misawa and Manjoume's duel. _He had it won. There's no way that he didn't. But he gave it up._ Watching a duel on their PDAs was different from watching it in person or dueling it in person. Each card the players set could be revealed in the recording, whether they actually played it in the duel or not. Ryou tapped at the controls and wasn't surprised in the least to find that Misawa's set card had been Magic Cylinder. _Idiot._

He was much more interested by the duel Asuka had against the Pro League duelist who used a wine deck. _Even with a handicap, she defeated him._ Something caught his eye as the duel played out and he checked more closely. _White Veil, again._

This time he tapped a few other buttons, looking into the effect of White Veil itself. _Interesting. It negates all spells and traps when the monster it's equipped to attacks. And that's not all._ There was the drawback, just as he'd imagined it would be. _Very _interesting indeed.

He closed the PDA and handed it back to Fubuki before he checked the time. There would still be time for a duel, if he hurried.

"Ryou?" Fubuki straightened up as he stood and brushed himself off. "Are you still going to do it?"

"Of course." Hell Kaiser hadn't seen anything that would make him rethink his plans. If anything, he wanted that duel now more than ever.

Fubuki sighed. "If that's what you really want. But be careful. Asuka's a lot better duelist than we thought she was. I watched her the other day after our duel. She took out most of the female dorm in nothing flat. She might even be able to give _you _a duel like you've never had before."

"I certainly hope so." Ryou's smile slashed across his face in that way that was becoming so familiar. "Come and watch if you like."

Fubuki only shook his head, and even Ryou couldn't be certain if he meant to turn down the offer or if he just couldn't believe this was going to happen in the first place. He turned and headed back to the main school area. It was time to issue a challenge.

* * *

><p>Asuka watched as Higa Tomomi hurried on her way, eyes full of the joy of the Light, ready to take up her new life spreading that joy to all she encountered. <em>One down, but so many more to go. <em>Showing the entire world this kind of happiness was going to take a while. Still, it was better than wallowing in selfish shadows, refusing to believe there was anything good in the Light.

As she put her deck away, two familiar faces made their way over to her. Torimaki and Mototani nodded a greeting before Mototani spoke up. "Asuka-sama, we've seen Hell Kaiser dueling. He finished off his opponent in one turn, with only two hundred life points of his own left."

Well. That was interesting. "Are you certain?" She didn't know if they knew about Saiou-sama's desire to have Hell Kaiser as one of the Society, but just the fact they'd seen this caught her interest. Perhaps this was the sacred Light's way of guiding her to duel against him.

"Yes. We saw it from the beginning," Torimaki said. He pulled out his PDA and turned it so she could see it. The duel played out before her, the other duelist's multiple direct damage cards and Ryou's contemptuous retaliation showing plainly.

"Very good." Before she'd encountered Higa, she'd spent half an hour studying the duel between her brother and Hell Kaiser, noting all the special abilities his new monsters had. That deck was dangerous against someone who used a dragon deck. The fact she didn't would weigh heavily in her favor.

"Are you going to challenge him?" Mototani wondered. "He'd be a great catch for the Light." She wasn't surprised at all that neither of them brought up the concept of one of _them_ challenging Hell Kaiser. As strong and wise as the Light was, some people could go so far and no farther.

"She won't have to!" Misawa burst from the bushes behind her and declared in his loudest tones. She wondered how long he'd been there. One would think the hair would've given him away. "_I'll _be the one who defeats Hell Kaiser and shows him the benefits of the Light!"

Mototani and Torimaki exchanged a look that Asuka caught from the corner of one eye. She also saw something else, or rather, someone else, behind the both of them. She started to draw herself up and greet Saiou-sama formally when he shook his head.

_Let Misawa-kun have his chance._ Hearing Saiou-sama's voice, so strong and pure, in her mind, sent a thrill through her, far deeper and more intense than winning any duel ever had. It was truly the voice of the Light.

Asuka turned to Misawa, a confident smile on her lips. "If you can do it, then do it. But if you can't, then he'll be mine to duel next." She didn't know why Saiou-sama wanted to give him this chance, but it didn't matter ultimately. _She_ would be the one to defeat Hell Kaiser. Saiou-sama had promised her that.

Misawa lifted his head and sniffed. "I don't think I'll have any problems with this whatsoever. I hope you'll all be watching."

"We will be, Misawa-kun." Asuka promised him. If nothing else, she would need to watch in order to research Hell Kaiser's methods some more.

Misawa turned and hurried off in the direction the other two indicated Hell Kaiser could be found. Mototani and Torimaki themselves followed, evidently curious to see if Misawa would be able to accomplish what he said he would. Asuka, on the other hand, looked again at Saiou-sama.

"Do you think he can do it?"

Saiou-sama's lips curved up and her expression matched his once he finished speaking. "We can give him all the chances he desires. But when his opponent has no interest in dueling him, then there's nothing we can do."

And not one word of that surprised Asuka at all.

* * *

><p>Hell Kaiser knew his way around Duel Academia quite well, so it didn't take him long at all to reach the Obelisk White girl's dorm. He considered challenging Asuka via the PDAs, but for their first duel in years, he felt this was best done in person.<p>

"Hell Kaiser!" Oh, not another idiot who wanted to duel him and win fame, glory, and his Genex medals. He turned to where the voice came from, his eyes narrowing when he saw who it was. He would've preferred the idiot.

"What do you want, Misawa?" After seeing that duel against Manjoume, he had very little time for the former Ra duelist. He doubted he would've had time for him before seeing that, in all truth. Someone who surrendered a duel meant nothing to the one who wanted true victory.

The other stepped forward, opening his jacket to display many long lines of Genex medals. "I challenge you to a Genex duel!" He tilted his head back, a swift grin crossing his features. "And when I win, you'll join the Society of Light!"

"No." Hell Kaiser shook his head. He might've considered it if Misawa weren't one of the Society or had entered it with a true defeat. He _was_ a talented duelist. But he'd made up his mind about who he wanted to duel from this group already. "But if Asuka is available, tell her that I want to duel her." Not quite as personal as he'd hoped, but better than nothing.

Misawa stared at him, jaw dropped, before he shook his own head. "You can't. No one can turn down a Genex duel."

"No one can turn down the _first_ Genex duel of the day that they're challenged to." Hell Kaiser pointed out. "But I've had four Genex duels today." The fact that Misawa didn't even begin to interest him to duel should've been obvious. But perhaps being more direct would work. "Nor would I wish to duel someone who _surrenders_."

The other stared, cheek twitching, until Ryou moved past him. If Misawa wouldn't take the message for him, he would do it himself. At least that way he would know that it had actually been given.

"Ryou." He hadn't taken too many steps away from Misawa before he heard that familiar voice. He hadn't seen her since the previous summer, after he'd set up his own apartment in Domino, and what caught his attention first was the new white uniform. It didn't flatter her, he decided.

"Asuka."

Behind her was someone he didn't recognize. Long blue hair, a sly smile… "I presume this is Saiou Takuma?" He looked like a manager. He had the same kind of attitude that Saruyama had, among other things.

"Yes. Saiou-sama, this is Marufuji Ryou. He was the Kaiser of Duel Academia once, but now calls himself Hell Kaiser." He'd never seen Asuka bending her head in such humility to anyone before. It wasn't a sight he enjoyed seeing now.

Saiou's gaze flickered across Ryou's black outfit. "A pleasure to meet you, Hell Kaiser. I've heard that your dueling talent has increased since your bout against Edo."

"I've learned a few things since then." Hell Kaiser agreed. He wasn't that interested in talking to this man, though.

"If you're in the market for a manager, I think I can find time, even being here." Saiou's smile reminded him of Saruyama even more than he'd thought. He started to reach into an inner pocket when Ryou shook his head. "Oh? I can do great things for your career. You can ask Edo."

"Not interested." He turned his gaze back to Asuka. "I want to see how well you duel now."

Asuka pulled out her deck without hesitation. "I've wanted to duel you as well, Ryou. You're following the wrong path and I'm going to shed light on your darkness."

"Fubuki tried something like that. I doubt you'll get any farther." Really, he was getting so tired of people who thought they knew better than he did what he wanted. There was no other way to convince them than to duel them, which suited him just fine.

"Fubuki tried the wrong way. You can't penetrate darkness with more darkness. Only light will show the way." Asuka moved a few feet away, while Saiou and a few others who also wore white stood behind her.

He didn't bother answering her. What would show her his truth would be his dueling. That was the language he spoke best, after all.

Footsteps and murmured words behind him told him that there were others moving to see the duel from there. He identified the people without having to look. Juudai, Manjoume, Fubuki, and Shou, along with another voice he couldn't identify right away. Let them watch. Maybe it would teach them a few lessons as well.

"Prepare to bid farewell to the darkness, Hell Kaiser." Asuka slammed her deck into her duel disk and drew her first hand. "When this duel ends, we'll welcome the new Kaiser of the Light."

A thousand responses rose to his lips and he negated them all in favor of a single word, the only word that meant anything to him, other than 'victory' itself.

"Duel!"

**To Be Continued**


	4. Hell Versus Hikari

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing involved in this story unless I invented it myself. This is written for fun, not for profit.  
><strong>Fandom:<strong> Yu-Gi-Oh GX  
><strong>Title:<strong> Symbols of Death: 4-8: Hell versus Hikari  
><strong>Characters:<strong> Ryou, Asuka, Saiou  
><strong>Word Count:<strong> chapter: 4,239||story: 17,080  
><strong>Genre:<strong> Drama, Friendship||**Rated:** PG-13  
><strong>Notes:<strong> This takes place during the Genex tournament, between episodes 90 and 91. For reference, Manjoume has left the Society of Light and Ryou has dueled Fubuki.  
><strong>Feedback:<strong> All forms eagerly accepted. Concrit is loved the most, but everything is welcome.  
><strong>Summary:<strong> In his search to change his destiny, Saiou sets his sights on Hell Kaiser. Does the duelist of power stand a chance to defeat the Society's two finest warriors or will he kneel before the Light?

* * *

><p>"I'll take the first turn!" Asuka launched right into the thick of the duel. Just seeing Ryou over there in black leather sickened her to her stomach. He needed to find the way to the Light and she would guide him as Saiou-sama guided her. "I summon Cyber TuTu and equip her with Angel Wing!" Her lovely ballerina appeared with a graceful twirl, pure white wings appearing behind her in the same moment. Asuka admired them; they would add an extra three hundred points of damage whenever Cyber TuTu attacked. "Now, I set one card facedown and end my turn."<p>

Hell Kaiser lifted one eyebrow at the glittering dancer before him, then turned to his own cards. "I summon Hell Dragon." Great black wings rose over him as his monster appeared, roaring defiance against all who dared to oppose it and its master. "Attack Cyber Tutu!" He hadn't dueled against Asuka in some time, but he knew how she played nevertheless. He wondered if the facedown would be Doble Passe, which would allow her to inflict thirteen hundred points of damage to him. It would be a good move if it was.

"Reverse card, open!" Asuka pointed toward her set card, which flipped up to reveal itself as an instant magic. "Prima Light! By tributing Cyber TuTu, I can summon Cyber Prima from my hand!" And Cyber Prima exceeded Hell Dragon's attack by three hundred points. Asuka smiled to herself; Ryou would at least reconsider his attack. After all, why destroy his monster needlessly? Even with the attack strength difference, he would need to defend himself against her attack next turn.

Cyber TuTu glowed brilliantly before transforming into Cyber Prima, dark silver hair shimmering in the light, ready to defend her duelist. Hell Dragon hesitated for a moment before Ryou spoke. "Hell Dragon, attack Cyber Prima!"

"That makes no sense!" Asuka could understand if Hell Dragon had an effect that would make such a suicide mission worthwhile; she was no stranger to making a sacrifice now for a benefit later. But this…this was insane! He would be vulnerable to _all_ of her attacks. That wasn't like him.

"Hell Dragon would be destroyed in my End Phase no matter what. The least I can do is let it go out in battle." Ryou watched with dark, satisfied eyes as his monster blasted a stream of dark fire toward Cyber Prima. There were other reasons for sending Hell Dragon to the graveyard as well, but she didn't need to know about those just yet.

Asuka's monster raised one slender finger and destroyed the dragon with Ending Reverence, a shimmering stream of power that left her as the only monster on the field and Ryou with a three hundred point disadvantage.

"Are you done?" Asuka really didn't need any more evidence that being steeped in darkness for so long hadn't been good for Ryou. Then her eyes narrowed. _It's a level four dragon-type. His Cyber Dark dragons can equip level four dragons to themselves._ She'd seen that in the recording of his duel against Fubuki. She would have to watch for that. Power was still Ryou's playing style, but power now mated to strategy instead of brute strength. She didn't smile, but satisfaction at fighting an opponent she knew and didn't know at the same time thrummed along her veins. Not being able to predict his moves…

She mentally shook herself. That was the wrong way to think about this. The Light was what she had to follow, always. The Light would illuminate her path.

Ryou didn't answer her directly but pulled one of the cards from his hand and held it up. "I play Angel's Charity, drawing three cards from my deck and sending two cards from my hand to the graveyard." He discarded Cyber Dark Keel and Cyber Dragon before he chose another card from his hand. "Now I activate Time Capsule and choose one card from my deck that I'll add to my hand in two more turns." She couldn't tell what card it was as he made his selection, just before setting three more cards, leaving himself with only one card in his hand.

Asuka eyed those facedown cards distrustfully. He had something in mind. But she would win, no matter what. "Because of Angel Wing being sent to the cemetery, I draw one card." Once she'd taken care of that, Ryou ended his turn and she drew again.

"This isn't looking good, is it, aniki?" Shou murmured to Juudai, who stood watching the duel with his arms folded over his chest and his attention shifting between the two duelists. Shou wasn't entirely certain of who he wanted to win. On the one hand, if his brother won, it might get Asuka back to her senses, but at the same time, it would drive him deeper into the shadows. If Asuka won, then his brother would become one of those white-wearing weirdos. That wasn't something he'd wish on anyone.

"It's kind of early to tell," Juudai replied. "They're both really good. Either one of them could win."

Asuka's lip curled at that. She was one of the Society of Light. She _was_ going to win, no matter what tricks of the shadows Ryou tried to pull.

Now, she got back down to the business of dueling. "I play Ritual of Machine Angel, discarding Mind on Air in order to summon Cyber Angel Benten!" Her fan-wielding warrior flipped into existence before her, taking an offensive stance. "Attack that player directly!" Ryou's facedown cards had to have something there to protect him. He wouldn't have left himself _that_ unprotected, no matter what new style he used. _This would be over if I had drawn White Veil. _But in due time. Unless those face-downs could counter her even more perfectly than she thought, this would finish him nevertheless.

"I activate Call of the Living Dead, summoning Cyber Dark Keel back from the graveyard!" Ryou declared. A sleek, black-scaled dragon appeared before him, with a mere eight hundred attack points. Asuka recognized it from his duel against Fubuki. _Why didn't he summon Cyber Dragon? I would've had to halt my attack then._

Ignorant of her musings, Ryou continued his defensive play. "Then I activate Rare Metal Conversion-Magical Reflection Armoring, which raises Cyber Dark Keel's attack by five hundred points!" Cyber Dark Keel glowed, scales still dark but now with an extra metallic edge that reflected the increase in strength.

However, thirteen hundred points still couldn't compare to Cyber Angel Benten's eighteen hundred. Asuka gestured for the attack to continue, satisfied as Benten's fan sheared through the dark dragon, sending it swirling back to the graveyard. _He should've used Cyber Dragon._

"That's not all, of course. Whenever Cyber Angel Benten destroys a monster, she inflicts damage equal to the defense of that monster to the opposing player." Benten dropped down in front of Hell Kaiser and thrust her fan toward him, sending another wave of energy pulsating into the dark duelist. He said nothing, only waited for what he surely knew was coming next. "Cyber Prima! Attack him directly with Ending Reverence!"

Most people would have flinched at that attack. Hell Kaiser stood where he was, eyes distant as if he listened to some voice only he could hear, that last card of his still held in one hand.

Shou swallowed, his eyes wide as he stared at his brother. "He's only got a hundred life points left." _He_ wouldn't be able to turn a duel like this around. Not that he wouldn't want to, but with only one facedown card and one more in his hand, what _could_ his brother do? What could anyone do?

Asuka set one of her own last cards down and started to end her turn. Before she could do so properly, Ryou spoke up. "I activate my last facedown, Return Soul, returning Cyber Dark Keel to my deck!"

Confused murmurs echoed through the crowd. Asuka said nothing; whatever plans he had, she was certain the Light would ruin them in the end. He _needed_ rescuing from the dark abyss he'd fallen into. The fact he didn't think so made it more apparent to her that he did.

"I play Pot of Greed!" Of course. He would need to reinforce his hand right now. From the thin slash of a smile across his lips, he thought that he could do something to stop her. How she looked forward to proving him wrong. "Now, I activate Future Fusion, sending material monsters from my deck to the graveyard in order to summon that Fusion monster on my second standby phase." From the glint in his eyes, this was just the beginning. Or so he wanted her to believe. "I send Cyber Dark Edge, Cyber Dark Keel, and Cyber Dark Horn to the graveyard!"

So that was why he'd returned Cyber Dark Keel to the deck. In two turns, his new ace monster would be on the field. Asuka lifted her head, one eyebrow raised. "Do you expect to still be in this duel in two more turns?" Not to mention, all she had to do was draw Cyclone and she could destroy Future Fusion before Cyber Dark Dragon's arrival on the field. There was nothing he could summon in this turn that would destroy _both_ of her monsters and finish her at the same time.

"This duel will be over before that card resolves." Ryou promised. "Because now, I activate Overload Fusion! I remove Cyber Dragon, Cyber Dark Edge, Cyber Dark Horn, and Cyber Dark Keel from my graveyard in order to summon Chimeratech OverDragon!" The minute the four-headed monster arose behind Hell Kaiser, Future Fusion exploded into a mist. Asuka saw his plan at once: he'd never meant to summon Cyber Dark Dragon in the first place. It was just a trick to get the other machine-type monsters into the graveyard for Overload Fusion. "Chimeratech OverDragon not only has eight hundred attack points for each monster I used to summon it, but it can attack your monsters four times in each battle phase."

Her monsters weren't in defense mode, either. It wouldn't defeat her, but the idea of her life points being touched by a creature of darkness sickened her. How low had Ryou fallen that he would resort to tactics like this? _I won't let that monstrosity touch me._

"Chimeratech OverDragon, attack her Cyber Prima!" Hell Kaiser commanded. "Evolution Result Burst!" One head drew in a breath, then blasted a thick spray of shadowy energy toward Asuka's most powerful warrior on the field. Cyber Prima screamed and exploded and Asuka fought back a shudder. She couldn't let this demon defeat her! For the pride of Obelisk White, she had to win!

"Trap, activate! Holy Life Barrier!" She discarded the last of her cards, Fusion Recovery, to trigger the effect. She would only have what she drew from her deck after this, but it was well worth it. "I'll take no damage from your monsters or effects this turn!"

Something in his smile said he'd expected that. His next words made it plain he also didn't care. "Chimeratech OverDragon, destroy Cyber Angel Benten."

"Why?" Shou murmured, hardly able to believe his eyes. This was almost as revolting as seeing Ryou discard three-quarters of his deck to avoid being dealt battle damage. "It wouldn't do her any damage and Cyber Angel Benten wouldn't be strong enough to defeat his monster anyway."

"So she can't use it against him somehow. Asuka's got a lot of tricks in her deck. She could use Ritual Weapon; that would make Cyber Angel Benten strong enough to beat Chimeratech OverDragon and beat him too." Juudai told him. Shou bit his lip and nodded; he wasn't sure if Asuka being able to win would be a good thing, really. Not in this duel. He glanced over to where Saiou and the other members of the Society stood and shivered. Not because of the tense duel, but because of something else altogether.

Saiou was looking at him. A thin, slightly amused smile bent the older student's lips as he did and Shou wondered what was going through his mind.

_Talk to me when this over, Marufuji Shou._ The words echoed in his mind and Shou's eyes widened in disbelief. Had he…had that really happened? How could it have? Normal people couldn't do things like that! He opened his mouth as if to say something and closed it again. No. That couldn't have happened. He was dreaming.

He pulled his attention back to the duel. This was what he really needed to focus on. His brother set the last card in his hand and ended his turn. The duel still appeared overwhelmingly in Asuka's favor, given that she had four thousand life points and Ryou had only a hundred. But he had one of his most powerful monsters and she didn't have any at all. Even if she drew one, how could it be strong enough to defeat a monster with thirty-two hundred attack points?

"Since Pot of Greed worked so well for you last time, I think I'll play it now!" Asuka drew her two new cards and did not hold back a smile when she saw what they were. "I summon Cyber Gymnatics, in attack mode!" With only eight hundred attack points, this muscled warrior didn't appear strong enough to match Chimeratech OverDragon. "Now, by discarding a card, I activate her special effect: I can destroy one face-up attack position monster that my opponent controls!" Allegro Tool entered her graveyard.

Shou's jaw dropped as Cyber Gymnatics somersaulted over to Ryou's side of the field, landing behind Chimeratech OverDragon, and seizing the creature by one of its heads. Muscles flexed and rippled, then Hell Kaiser's dark monster was nothing but a memory. Asuka nodded proudly at her warrior. "Now, attack him directly and finish this duel!"

"Not quite. To steal your words, since negating all damage worked so well for _you_last turn, I think it will do the same for me. I activate Power Wall!" With one abrupt gesture, he tossed eight cards from the top of his deck to the ground before him. Shou shuddered; of all of his brother's new cards, he hated that one the most.

Asuka rolled her eyes. "And you claim that you don't need to know the Light." She shook her head and ended her turn. There were none as blind as those who would not see, and Ryou chose not to see.

"Darkness suits me better than light suits you, Asuka." Ryou told her. Preaching conversion wasn't what he was there for, though. He drew his next card. "Since this is the second stand-by phase since I played Time Capsule, I can now put the card I chose into my hand."

Tension rippled throughout the gathered crowd. More than one person there had seen how he used that, often to bring Fusion or Power Bond to his hand when he needed it the most. Now what it would it be?

The card he chose to play, however, was not the one he'd added to his hand with Time Capsule. Ryou held that in reserve, waiting for just the right moment before he made his strike. "I play Raise Dead, summoning Hell Dragon back from the graveyard in defense mode, and end my turn!"

_Defense? His turn's over already?_ Asuka didn't like this at all. Everything would depend on her next draw. _He didn't attack with Hell Dragon. He could have and it would've left me defenseless until my next turn. What's he doing? _He couldn't be so committed to the darkness that the sacred Light couldn't illuminate his strategy, could he?

"Oh, wow, this is _awesome_!" Juudai's annoying voice chirped from the other side of the field. Of course he would support the warrior of shadows, wouldn't he? She couldn't believe how much of an idiot he was, always rejecting the Light. "I haven't seen a duel like this in ages!"

"Aniki!" Shou shot a glare that would've been more effective if he were somewhat taller. "What's going to happen if…if…" He shook his head, words failing him.

"I don't know, but it'll be fun to find out, won't it?" Juudai ignored both Shou's glare and the one Manjoume silently sent him from a few feet away. At least that was something she had in common with the two of them: being annoyed by Juudai's constant cheerfulness.

Asuka jerked her thoughts back to where they properly belonged. She wasn't one of _them_ anymore, no matter what small points they might share. She was second in command of the Society of Light and that was all she needed to focus on.

The moment her attention was on her deck, she could feel Saiou-sama's presence at her back once again. No matter what happened, she knew she would remain strong in the Light. The White Light and Saiou-sama kept every promise made to her. _They_ didn't see her only value being in her gender. _They_ listened when she said she wasn't interested in something. Even more, _they_ listened when she said she _was _interested in being a leader and a duelist.

Not like her brother. Not like her _friends_. All of Fubuki's pretty words about her being his pride and joy were only as long as she did what she wanted. When she didn't want to take part in that idol singing nonsense, when she refused to accept the name of _Asuryn_, then he tried to force her into it! Trying to duel her into it, corroding dueling with his nonsense when she'd already told him no!

Not like the Light. Not like Saiou-sama. They listened. They cared.

For them, she would win this duel.

"I draw!" Her eyes widened when she saw what lay in her hand. She hadn't drawn that card in _months_, to the point she'd almost considered taking it out of her deck. Now, when she needed it the most, it came to her hand. It was Saiou-sama's will. There would be no failing in this duel, not with this to give her strength! "From my hand, I play Treasure From Heaven! I remove Cyber Gymnatics from play and in return, we can both draw until we have six cards!"

Sure, this reinforced her opponent's hand as well, but given that it was her turn, she was certain she could defeat him before he could do anything to stop her. She spread her new hand out before her and considered her options. Two of the cards were useless at the moment: Raregold Armor and Cyclone. But the other four were just what she needed.

"I fuse Blade Skater and Etoile Cyber to create Cyber Blader!" Her most versatile monster, whose effect depended on how many monsters her opponent hand, spun into existence before her. She wasn't done yet, though. This was a victory for the Society of Light, which meant there was something Cyber Blader needed first. "And I equip her with White Veil!" Now any spells or traps that Ryou might have, now or in the future, would be negated as soon as her monster attacked. She eyed Hell Dragon. _He destroyed Cyber Angel Benten just to stop me from using her. I think I should return the favor._ "Cyber Blader, destroy his Hell Dragon! Glissade Slash White!" This wouldn't damage him, but she was fine with that.

Cyber Blader skated toward Hell Dragon, each movement perfect and graceful. Then she whirled, one sharp-edged skate slamming into the defensive monster's neck hard enough to destroy it. Asuka shot a cold smile toward Hell Kaiser. Could there be anything in his freshly drawn cards that would give him a victory? She doubted it very much. All he could do was defend himself and that wouldn't last forever. "Turn end."

"Your best card." Ryou glanced at Cyber Blader as the warrior came back to stand before Asuka. Then his gaze dropped to White Veil itself and he smiled. She refused to let tht scare her. It meant nothing. It was only a meaningless attempt to frighten her. "This duel is about to end, Asuka."

"Were you planning on surrendering?" Asuka lifted one eyebrow as she spoke, her lips tilted in a smirk. "That's the only way I can see it ending other than defeating you myself." Either route was fine with her. Though in perfect truth, she wanted to defeat him herself. She had never been more pleased that Ryou wasn't the type to surrender. She would see this battle through to the end.

"Then your vision isn't as clear as you want to think it is." Ryou now had seven cards in his hand. No one dared to breathe. Asuka wondered if any of them dared to _think_ right now. "First, by its special effect, I summon Cyber Dragon!"

Asuka wasn't impressed. Cyber Dragon's attack equaled Cyber Blader's, which given Cyber Blader's current effect of not being destroyed in battle meant her monster would survive and his wouldn't if they clashed. Surely he knew that.

Then he took another card from his hand. "I'm certain you want to know what card I used Time Capsule for. It's this." He flicked the card around in his hand to reveal a simple thousand attack point monster. "I summon Bomber Dragon!"

"He used Time Capsule for _that_?" Mototani's voice echoed softly from one side. "Has he lost his mind? Half of my deck can beat that thing and the other half wouldn't even notice it!"

Asuka shifted; she knew Ryou better than most would think, even with both of them having changed as much as they had. There was more on the way. Ryou simply did not _make _bad plays. They might be nonsensical, but they were never bad. Even his use of Hell Dragon had bought him one more turn, leading him here.

"Since you've got two monsters, Cyber Blader's second effect comes into play: her attack doubles." Asuka reminded him. Perhaps he wanted to destroy it with a special effect? That still wouldn't make any sense. She had too many life points for either of his monsters to take her down. "Neither of your monsters can stand up to forty-two hundred attack points. You'd be finished no matter what. Or have you forgotten that you only have a hundred life points left?"

"Not at all. But I could win this duel if I only had one life point to my name." Hell Kaiser's expression sent chills down the spine of everyone watching. "Walking through hell has taught me that strength and victory don't come from just attack points. Watch and learn, Asuka. Bomber Dragon, attack Cyber Blader!"

No one there could believe their eyes or their ears as the thousand attack point monster rose up and flapped over toward Asuka, a bomb held between its front talons. Asuka stared as well; was he trying to go out with some sort of bang? Defeating himself instead of letting her do it? It couldn't be. Even now, that wasn't _him_. He wasn't a quitter and he wasn't suicidal either!

"When Bomber Dragon attacks, neither duelist takes battle damage!" Ryou's voice cracked across the battlefield as Bomber Dragon swept across to her monster. "But the monster that destroys Bomber Dragon is destroyed as well!"

"That…" Asuka stepped back, shaking her head. That wasn't possible! It was _wrong_! How had he managed to do this? No, she was still safe. Cyber Dragon wasn't strong enough to defeat her. Then the memory of what Mototani and Torimaki told her shot through her mind. He'd doubled Cyber Twin Dragon's attack points with Gigantic Transformation. If he had that in his hand, he could use it on Cyber Dragon, giving it enough attack points to finish her off. White Veil wouldn't be able to help her; it would be destroyed when Cyber Blader was. "White Veil…" Confusion rippled through her voice. White Veil's effect only worked when her monster _attacked_, not when it was attacked, and it did nothing for monster effects.

Was the Light…flawed?

Hell Kaiser nodded, turning his head for a moment to look at Fubuki before he looked back at her. She couldn't read her brother's expression beyond a mix of hope and horror as Ryou continued to speak. "And White Veil has the effect that when the monster equipped with it goes to the graveyard, you take damage equal to that monster's attack." He leaned forward, eagerness glinting in his eyes. "And as you reminded me just a minute ago, Cyber Blader's attack is forty-two hundred."

**To Be Continued**

**Note:** That really is White Veil's secondary effect. You can see it at the Yu-Gi-Oh wiki.


	5. Warnings of What Will Be

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing involved in this story unless I invented it myself. This is written for fun, not for profit.  
><strong>Fandom:<strong> Yu-Gi-Oh GX  
><strong>Title:<strong> Symbols of Death: 5-8: Warnings of What Will Be  
><strong>Characters:<strong> Ryou, Asuka, Saiou  
><strong>Word Count:<strong> chapter: 4,187||story: 21,267  
><strong>Genre:<strong> Drama, Friendship||**Rated:** PG-13  
><strong>Notes:<strong> This takes place during the Genex tournament, between episodes 90 and 91. For reference, Manjoume has left the Society of Light and Ryou has dueled Fubuki.  
><strong>Feedback:<strong> All forms eagerly accepted. Concrit is loved the most, but everything is welcome.  
><strong>Summary:<strong> In his search to change his destiny, Saiou sets his sights on Hell Kaiser. Does the duelist of power stand a chance to defeat the Society's two finest warriors or will he kneel before the Light?

* * *

><p>Asuka stumbled back, a shriek of pain spiraling out of her throat as the backlash damage drained her life points down to nothing. Tense wariness bit into every muscle, keeping her from collapsing from the intense pain of her loss. From deep within her came the surging strength of the Light, wrapping all around her and supporting her.<p>

**You still belong to me.** That cool, unmistakable voice that she'd heard once before, on the day of her white baptism, echoed in her mind, and she relaxed. **You have done well. You will be avenged.**

Yes. Avenged. Hell Kaiser had done worse than beat her, he'd _humiliated_ her, using the effect of White Veil against her. Not that it was impossible, but just the fact someone like him, someone steeped in the darkness, would dare to do so in the first place rankled in her.

She straightened up, becoming more aware of her surroundings as the Light within faded from her awareness. It was still there, she knew, just not as _there _in her mind. Only a few seconds had passed; everyone else still stared at the tableau before them. Hell Kaiser stood there, arms folded over his chest, staring at her with that impassive expression that was now his norm. Juudai and all of his friends watched her, an entirely different look in their eyes.

_They want me 'freed' from the Society._ Her lips twisted at the very thought. It would take far, far more than a simple defeat in a duel to make her walk away from the Society of Light.

"You won." Her voice still held that same strength and she nodded to herself. She was still Asuka of the Light. She started to dig into her jacket for her Genex medals. There were still plenty of others who could bring in a Genex victory for the Society. Saiou-sama would likely enough do it himself, if he so chose.

Hell Kaiser shook his head. "I don't need those." His gaze flickered behind her to where Saiou-sama and the others stood, but he said nothing else as he began to turn away. "You're better than you were." There was all but no emotion in his voice; his words were a simple statement of fact. She could see Fubuki among the others now, worry written large across his own features as Ryou spoke.

"Of course I am. I belong to the Society of Light." She gathered up her cards and ignored the pleading looks of Juudai, her brother, and all the rest of those fools. She had to admit that Ryou was also better than he had been, especially with those new cards of his. _Perhaps I should build a new deck._ Her Cyber Angels served her well, but change could be useful.

**In time. **She hadn't expected the sacred Light to answer her, but the reply reassured her on more than one level. She nodded, little more than a tilt of her head. The Light knew everything, after all. If she would gain a new deck in time, then she would be patient and wait.

For now, however, what she really wanted to do was take a hot shower and have dinner. Dueling strained her every resource and she needed to recover before she even considered reviewing the duel and how she could've won.

Not to mention how she could use this to increase the greater glory of the Light. There would doubtless be many duelists who thought she'd be easy pickings because of this. They would learn better, she reassured herself. All in due time.

* * *

><p>Fubuki hurried after Ryou, glad that the two of them were nearly of the same height so it wouldn't be too difficult to keep up with him. "Well?" One single word held a world's worth of impact. He'd heard what Ryou'd said, but he wanted to know so much more.<p>

"She's better than she was." Hell Kaiser shrugged. Already he was going over the duel in his mind, touching on those points where he knew he could improve. Asuka really had improved; he didn't think that she could've taken him down to a hundred points with that much speed a few months earlier.

Fubuki didn't stamp his foot but the thought crossed his mind anyway. "That's not what I was asking about." The problem with being friends with Ryou was that he thought in his own ways and methods and if you didn't work with those, one was likely to get very confused, not to mention frustrated. When he was in 'duel' mode, nothing else mattered to him, and Hell Kaiser lived in 'duel' mode.

"She's sixteen, Fubuki. She can make up her own mind about what she wants to do. You're just going to have to deal with it." That was how he handled matters with Shou. Sometimes the best way was to let them make their own mistakes.

Fubuki ground his teeth and all but threw himself in front of Ryou, stopping the other from moving forward. "She's not the Asuka I've known, Ryou, and you know it. Would Asuka had ever dueled like that last year? The year before? She doesn't care about anyone else except Saiou and the Society. She _wasn't like that_."

"People change, Fubuki." He brushed the other's protests away with a few simple words. He knew the fact Asuka wasn't so focused on him anymore was part of what ate at Fubuki. "You're not the most important person in her life anymore. It happens." Biting words, but true ones, he was certain.

His friend stared at him for a few moments before his shoulders drooped. "You really think that's all there is to it?" He didn't want to believe that. Ryou read that in every part of him.

"If it's anything else, then there's nothing you or I can do about it." He wasn't sure that he would even if he could. He had his own issues to deal with. He didn't have the time or the inclination to take care of everyone else in the world.

Fubuki's fists clenched and he shook his head. "I can't believe that, Ryou." He'd been possessed, controlled against his will, not all that long ago, enough so that the memories still haunted his dreams, more than he wanted to tell anyone, even Ryou. Or Asuka. "There's a way to help her. I just don't know what it is yet."

"Then find it." Ryou stepped around Fubuki. That duel had taken much more out of him than the one with the idiot who thought direct damage would defeat Hell Kaiser and he wanted to find his way to some food and a flat surface. Everything else could sort itself out without him.

* * *

><p>Fubuki watched as Ryou walked to the main school building; those who were visiting for the Genex tournament had special quarters set up there. He'd made a point to find out about them, especially once he'd found out that Ryou would be there. He would've offered to share his dorm room if Ryou'd needed a place to sleep.<p>

_Well, kind of Manjoume-kun's dorm room._ Since it had more than one bedroom in it, the two of them shared it now. Both looked forward to the day when Asuka would be free of Saiou's grip and would come back to live there. Or in Obelisk Blue, once it _was_Obelisk Blue again.

Part of him wanted to go after Ryou and demand more. More dueling. More _caring_ about other people. More effort to save his sister from a fate worse than death or not dating. Part of him wanted to go over to the girl's dorm and make sure Asuka herself was all right after that duel. It wasn't the most brutal he'd ever seen, but he worried, nevertheless.

Instead, he started walking. He didn't know exactly where he was going, but he'd done this sort of thing before. Wherever someone needed him, that was where he would be. That was how he'd...he'd...

Fubuki's eyes narrowed for a moment, trying to grasp hold of a memory that fluttered beyond his reach. He almost had it. An image he knew down to the core of his soul, the old dorm that he still couldn't believe was now abandoned and forgotten, a pair of violet eyes...

"Fubuki-san! Fubuki-san!" His head jerked up at the calling of his name. Juudai ran toward him, waving cheerfully, and all other thoughts slipped away. Whatever it was, he could figure it out some other day, he decided.

"Juudai! What's going on?" Juudai didn't really just run around for no reason doing anything. Something must have happened somewhere. His first thoughts jumped to Asuka. If something had happened after she'd left the dueling field...

Juudai pitched to a halt, leaning over to catch his breath, and looked up at him. "Have you seen Shou? He was right there with me after the duel, and we were going to get some dinner, but then he was gone. Kenzan's looking for him too."

Shou missing? Fubuki shook his head. "I haven't seen him since then." He glanced in the direction Ryou'd taken. "He might've wanted to talk to his brother?"

Juudai fidgeted, eyes darkened by worry. "I don't know. Let's go find out?"

"Sure." He hadn't _noticed_ Shou being around, but Shou did have a way of passing under one's radar. Fubuki pushed the worrisome thoughts about Asuka out of his mind for the moment. He would find a way to save her and she would _be_ saved and all of this would soon turn into one of those funny stories about their high school days that they would talk about in the future.

"So, that was some duel, wasn't it?" Juudai said as the two fell into step together. "Kaiser's really dueling a lot better than he was. Asuka was pretty sharp too."

Fubuki wasn't surprised to feel a smile tug at his lips. "I know. I just wish they weren't being like _this_." Ryou obsessed with victory, Asuka obsessed with the Society...why couldn't they have become better duelists without being like _that_?

"Yeah, I know. Asuka's been scary ever since she joined." Juudai hesitated for a moment, his head tilted to one side. "Well, scarier than she usually was. Shou told me that while I was gone, he thought she was going to smack him upside the head with a magazine once."

Fubuki's lips twitched. He could see that quite clearly in his imagination. "It wouldn't be the first time she's done that to someone." His skin still prickled at the sight of Pharaoh and those claws of his. Asuka would use any weapon she could to get the results she desired.

"Not surprised. She's got a pretty strong right hook." Juudai laughed, but it wasn't a very comfortable sound. "I kind of thought she was going to smack Ayanokouji-senpai when he started talking about that 'fiance' thing."

Fubuki blinked; he knew he'd missed out a lot but surely he'd know if Asuka had a fiance! "What do you mean?"

"She didn't tell you?" Juudai rubbed the back of his head and started on a story that Fubuki would've given at least a third of his soul to see in person. It kept them both occupied as they drew closer to the main building. Despite how much he talked, Juudai still kept an eye out for Shou, as did Fubuki. There was no sign of the short duelist, however.

As the tale drew to an end, Fubuki couldn't quite believe his ears. "You don't know what a fiance is?"

"I didn't then." Juudai shrugged. "But Asuka explained it to me once I asked."

Fubuki wished all over again that he'd been there to explain to Juudai for himself. Asuka probably hadn't said _anything_ other than the bare minimum and if Juudai didn't know what a fiance was, then what _else_ didn't he know about? As much as he worried about his best friend and his sister, Juudai was _also_in need of some of the specialized help from the Master of Love.

He opened his mouth to say something when Kenzan charged up, crying out for his aniki at the top of his lungs.

"Did you find Shou?" Juudai reached out to steady his friend before Kenzan fell over. Fubuki didn't know Kenzan very well, but he was certain he'd never seen him this disturbed about anything.

"I saw him." Kenzan gulped in great deep breaths of air before he finished his answer. "He's over near the Obelisk boys' dorm." The burly first year lifted his head to meet Juudai's eyes and Fubuki saw nothing but concern written in his gaze. "He's talking to Saiou."

* * *

><p>For the first few minutes after the duel ended, Shou remained right where he was beside Juudai, Saiou's request, if it had even happened at all, forgotten. He wanted to think about the duel, to try to decide how he could defeat some of those cards, and maybe work up the nerve to challenge his brother himself. Or at least a few other duelists, in order to prepare himself to one day make that challenge.<p>

What ended up happening was he found himself walking a short distance away from Juudai as the other wandered off, chatting animatedly with Kenzan about something or other. Whatever it was, Shou didn't think it was all that important. Not nearly as important as following the quiet call in his mind.

Though perhaps 'call' wasn't the right word for it. Something tugged at his thoughts as if he were a fish on a hook, guiding him through the crowd as it slowly dispersed, people going off to their own duels, to discuss this one, or to their dorms for study. Dinner was still an hour or two away and everyone had something they wanted to get done before then.

Dinner didn't matter right now to Shou either. Nothing did exact going where the call wanted him to go. He paid no attention to the students around him, not even stopping to see what could've been a spectacular duel.

"Huh?" His mind cleared with a sharp snap and he looked around to see himself in front of the glittering white building that had once been the Obelisk Blue boy's dorm. "How'd I end up here? Aniki?"

"He's not here." That voice. Shou quivered at the sound as Saiou stepped into view. He wasn't sure where the other stepped _from_, only that he was in front of Shou. A warm smile touched his lips. "But you and I have much to talk about, Marufuji Shou."

Shou swallowed and raised his head and shoulders, doing his best to appear intimidating. Or at least not intimidated by the other. "What do you want? I don't know anything that we should talk about!"

Oh, no. Something that Saiou _might _want flickered through Shou's mind. Could he...could he want to recruit him into the Society? Was this their way of getting revenge because of his brother beating Asuka?

"Oh, but we do. What we should discuss is your brother." Saiou gestured for Shou to follow him, but Shou dug in his heels. The last thing he wanted to do was go into the very stronghold of the Society of Light! He'd probably never come out again, at least not wearing yellow if he did! He wrapped his arms around his jacket, determined to stay where he was.

Saiou smiled again. "As you wish, then." The two of them were the only people in front of the building at the moment. Shou could hear others moving around inside, the noise wafting out through the propped open door, but no one seemed interested in them right now.

"What do you mean, my brother?" Shou finally said. He still didn't know why Saiou would want to talk to him about that.

"He made a grave error in defeating Tenjoin-kun." Saiou shook his head and sighed. "If he had lost to her, then he would've been given the great gift of the baptism of light, cleansing his soul of all the twisted desire for victory and power that has warped him for the last few months."

Shou wanted to shout about how mind control wasn't being 'cleansed', but even as the words shaped themselves in his mind, Saiou shook his head. "We don't control anyone in the Society of Light. People choose to follow me of their own wills. Ask Manjoume-kun. I offered him only the chance to break free of staleness, to become strong enough to achieve his goals. Whether he will choose to admit it or not, he has received all that he asked of me and more."

"What he...asked of you?" Shou rubbed the back of his head; that wasn't what he'd heard from Manjoume. Not that the black Osiris ever really _talked _about his time in the Society of Light.

"I do nothing without someone asking it of me. All I want to do is help other people." Saiou's smile warmed, even as a tear welled up in one of his eyes. "It is not easy, being burdened with the power that I have. I can see what is inevitable and what awaits your brother is the worst fate that I have seen for anyone in all my life."

Saiou wanted him to ask. Shou could see that coming a mile away. _I should just leave. Go find aniki._ He didn't move, though. He wasn't sure if it was because he didn't want to or if he just couldn't. Nevertheless, he remained where he was, cleared his throat, and spoke. "What kind of fate?"

"Death." Saiou's head drooped down, the tear spilling from one eye to course down his cheek, glittering in the afternoon sunlight. "He will die, Marufuji-kun, and there is nothing that you or I or anyone else can do to stop it. Fate cannot be changed by the likes of us."

Shou's heart clenched. "You're wrong." He didn't even know if he believed in fate, but he couldn't believe this. "Why would he die? He's not just going to fall over!"

"Even I don't see everything." Saiou's voice edged in grief at this and Shou almost felt sorry for him. "But what I see, I see. Those who can change destiny are few and far between."

"I still don't see why he would just _die_." Shou's hands balled up into fists, but he had no idea of what he wanted to hit. Saiou? Himself? Edo Phoenix? His brother? All of them were good candidates.

Saiou drew in a deep breath. "He will die because he follows this dark road to victory. That much I do know."

Shou tried to drag his mind back to what mattered. "And you think being one of your group would help him?" He didn't want to believe that. He _couldn't_ believe that. It didn't make any sense at all.

That smile sent a faint chill down Shou's spine, especially since another tear already sparkled within Saiou's eye. "He walks the path of darkness. If he chose the path of light, then he would avoid the fate that awaits him."

"I thought you said no one could change fate!" Shou declared, eyes narrowed. There was something off in what Saiou said and he was going to find it. _If I can save nii-san without him being one of **them**...I'll do it._

"They can't. But this is not changing fate. Everyone has _multiple_ fates, based on their actions. No one can create a new fate beyond what has already been set out for them. Your brother could continue to darkness and will die, or he could come into the Light and learn to live again." Saiou's smile widened as he casually wiped the tear away. "He would respect his opponents and his deck once again. Do you wish to see him using that _Power Wall_? The Cyber Dark Dragon that steals a monster from anyone's graveyard to sap its strength for itself?"

Ice wrapped around Shou's spine and heart as he recalled the times he'd already seen Ryou using those monsters, that trap. That trap itself sent a wave of nausea toward him. How could someone just casually discard their deck like that, even if it _did_ power up another monster? It wasn't _right_.

"He'd respect people again?" Ever since he'd fully grasped why his brother dueled and the respect that he gave out to other people, Shou longed to follow in his footsteps. He would be the same kind of respect duelist Ryou was. But when his brother abandoned respect and sought only power and victory... _How can I follow someone like that?_

"When have you seen any of us using tactics like that?" Saiou asked, one blue-tinted eyebrow lifting. Shou bit his lip; the method of dueling that Manjoume'd used against Asuka wasn't _quite _disrespectful, but it was cunning, and it was also something he wouldn't do.

But he didn't always agree with Manjoume's dueling ethics when he was _normal_ either.

"I guess not." Shou shifted; the thought wasn't one he liked, but the idea of his brother following respect again appealed to him. _It's not like he'd be hurt...Manjoume's all right. _Well, as all right as Manjoume ever was. Still, the Society itself made him nervous. Everything they'd been able to figure out about it indicated that Saiou somehow controlled all of these people, no matter what he said.

He swallowed again and lifted his gaze to meet Saiou's. "I don't know what you want from me, though. My brother makes up his own mind about things. I could hardly talk him into joining you." He couldn't honestly say he'd want to do so even if he could.

"Oh, I wouldn't expect you to do that." Saiou's smile lost a hint of its warmth, replaced by smug satisfaction. "I will persuade him myself, through a duel, if I must. What I would like from you is for you to simply do nothing. Don't attempt to stop me should he accept the blessings of the Society. I know you already want to turn him from his dark path. Do not attempt to change his walking into the Light."

Shou's stomach cramped to the point he thought he had no more appetite. To not try to help his brother went against every thought that had ever entered his mind. "I...but..." He groped for words that chose not to come. "Why would you want to help him? What's my brother to you? What are any of us to you?" He met those soft violet eyes once again, his own hard and angry. "Why are you doing any of this?"

He didn't expect an answer. But there was one anyway. "Everyone has something they desire, Marufuji-kun. Is it so wrong to wish to have friends?" The last question came out in a different tone, pleading for understanding.

"I guess not." Was that what the Society was? Saiou's friends? No, that couldn't be. He had friends. There was Edo and that weird girl, Mizuchi, his sister. Though he guessed being trapped in cyberspace didn't make one all that suitable for conversations or duels or anything.

There was still too much he didn't know about all of us. Saiou still hadn't answered one of his questions, though. "But why would you want to help my brother? Is this because of what happened with Edo?" Did he really want to become Ryou's manager?

"This has nothing to do with Edo." Saiou's lips softened into a hint of a warmer smile at the mention of the other duelist. "I want to help him because there are few fates worse than falling into the deepest darkness and dying because of it. I would do this no matter who it was. That it is a duelist of your brother's caliber is only a bonus."

Shou fidgeted again. Everything _sounded_ right, but it also _felt_ wrong. "I don't know." To stand aside and let Saiou do whatever he wanted to Ryou, to not even _try_ to get him back the way they had Manjoume-kun and the way he knew they would Misawa-kun and Asuka-san and everyone else in the school.

"Your choice is simple, Marufuji-kun." Saiou spoke so softly that Shou had to strain to hear him now. "If you stand aside and let the Light, in all of its wisdom and foresight, enfold Hell Kaiser, you will have the brother you remember back again. He will respect everything he despises now, just as he used to. That deck of his will be no more. If you do not, then he will continue to walk the path of the darkness and he _will die_. There is nothing that I can do to stop this." Saiou's eyes met his once again and Shou forgot how to think at all under that gaze. "He will be dead within six months, Marufuji-kun. Is that what you want?"

There was only one answer that he could make to a question like _that_. "No. No, I don't."

Saiou smiled.

**To Be Continued**

**Note:** Six months from this part of Genex would be late season three. Specifically, the duel between Hell Kaiser and Yubel!Johan.


	6. Warrior's Ways

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing involved in this story unless I invented it myself. This is written for fun, not for profit.  
><strong>Fandom:<strong> Yu-Gi-Oh GX  
><strong>Title:<strong> Symbols of Death: 6-8: Warrior's Ways  
><strong>Characters:<strong> Ryou, Asuka, Saiou  
><strong>Word Count:<strong> chapter: 4,417||story: 25,684  
><strong>Genre:<strong> Drama, Friendship||**Rated:** PG-13  
><strong>Notes:<strong> This takes place during the Genex tournament, between episodes 90 and 91. For reference, Manjoume has left the Society of Light and Ryou has dueled Fubuki.  
><strong>Feedback:<strong> All forms eagerly accepted. Concrit is loved the most, but everything is welcome.  
><strong>Summary:<strong> In his search to change his destiny, Saiou sets his sights on Hell Kaiser. Does the duelist of power stand a chance to defeat the Society's two finest warriors or will he kneel before the Light?

* * *

><p>Juudai wasted no time at all. As soon as he grasped what Kenzan said, he turned and raced toward the White dorm. Fubuki and Kenzan were only a few steps behind. Juudai tried not to think about what could be going on there.<p>

_Shou talking to Saiou. Why? What could Saiou want to talk to him about?_ The thought terrified him. No, not the thought of them talking, but what could happen because of them talking. Seeing Shou's warm eyes going cold, his gentle features twisting into a mask of remote contempt...

He'd seen enough of that. Manjoume. Asuka. Misawa. It would _not_ happen again. He hadn't been there for Manjoume. They hadn't _understood_ what was going on with Asuka. Misawa...Misawa he still didn't really get. But this time was different.

"Where are you running off to, Juudai?" Very few voices could've stopped Juudai in his tracks at the moment. Edo Phoenix was one of them. He pitched to a halt and stared at the suited duelist as if he'd never seen him before in his life.

"Shou's talking to Saiou about something. I need to get there before anything happens." Shou in a white jacket, turning his back on Juudai...no, no, no. Just no.

Edo raised one elegantly shaped eyebrow. "What would he want to talk to _Shou_ about?" Juudai decided right now he would ignore that trace of contempt in Edo's tone. He could deal with Edo's attitude some other day.

"I think it was something to do about his brother. Kaiser dueled Asuka and beat her just a little while ago." Juudai shifted on his feet, gaze flickering between Edo and the path that led to the White dorm. Every second they delayed was one more in which Saiou could do to Shou what he'd done to so many others. "I think he wants Hell Kaiser in the Society somehow."

Whatever kind of reaction he'd expected that to get from Edo, a quiet 'hm' wasn't really it. "I haven't talked to Saiou in a while." Edo murmured, more to himself than to Juudai. "But it's possible. I'm not sure what talking to Shou about it would accomplish, though."

Juudai's fists clenched and unclenched. His attention couldn't rest on Edo, but kept shifting away down the path. "I don't know either, but maybe he thinks if he can get Shou into that thing, he can get Kaiser too."

"He has no chance of converting Shou." Edo shook his head. "I can't say for Kaiser. But Shou isn't the kind of person who'd join that Society."

"What?" Juudai snapped his head around to stare at Edo. He wasn't sure if he believed Edo or not, though Edo _had_ been right about Misawa.

Kenzan shot Edo a look that wasn't quite that of the slit-eyed dinosaur, but wasn't that far from it either. "What're you talking about?" The very idea of Marufuji-senpai joining the Society was ridiculous! He couldn't, wouldn't, doubt his senior like that.

But he did want to know why _Edo_didn't think he would.

"Because the people who join him have one thing in common, whether they know it or not." Edo's gaze touched each of them briefly. "They're all searching for a leader, someone who can help them with their problems. Shou doesn't need that. He already has someone." His eyes rested on Juudai who blinked and looked around.

"He does? Who?"

Fubuki winced and groaned, shaking his head with a sharp snap. Sometimes Juudai was too dense for his own good. "We can talk about that later, Juudai. Doesn't matter what this Saiou guy wants, we need to get there and find out what's going on with them anyway." After what Saiou helped Manjoume do to Asuka, he wouldn't put it past the weirdo to try to use Shou _anyway_to get Ryou, if that was what he wanted!

_Getting Ryou's harder than it sounds, though. Most people who think they want him change their minds after that._ To Fubuki's certain knowledge, Ryou'd gone on all of three dates during his time at Duel Academia, each one with a different girl. None of them ever wanted to ask him out again after that. Poor guy.

"Right!" Juudai waved a quick farewell to Edo and hurried onward. At least Shou wasn't going to become one of those white-washed goons. He trusted Edo that much. He wouldn't lie about something like this. _I could get him back if I had to, but seeing him like that isn't top on my list of what to do with my spare time._ If it came to that, he would much rather be getting to know his deck better. He thought there was another variation on Contact Fusion he could use and he wanted to work out the details of it whenever he had the time. Unfortunately, there just never seemed to _be _the time.

He'd figure it out later. It wasn't vital to finding Shou and finding out what in the world Saiou _did_ have in mind. Hurrying as fast as he could make his feet run was.

* * *

><p>Shou swallowed and stared at Saiou. The other stood where he had all this time, impassive, his uniform glittering whiter than ever in the light of the setting sun. Saiou's last words echoed in his mind. No, he didn't want his brother to die. He couldn't let that happen if he could stop it somehow.<p>

Yet not doing anything, letting Saiou do whatever he wanted to his brother...

That wasn't right either.

"I want my brother like he was, but not like _this_!" Shou declared, standing up as straight as he could, forcing himself to focus despite how much his mind wanted to slide back into a comfortable sleep. "I don't want him like everyone else in that group of yours, thinking you're the best person _ever_."

Saiou's lips bent into a gentle smile, as if Shou were making some kind of childish mistake by thinking that. "I don't ask them to treat me like this, you know. It's all because they want to."

"I don't care if you do or not! I don't want my brother like that! If you try to take over his mind, I'll fight you every step of the way to get him back!" Shou stared at the taller duelist before he activated his duel disk. "I'll even duel you right now! If I win, you leave my brother alone!"

Shou's heart beat faster at the very thought of dueling Saiou. This was the only way he could even _try_ to save his brother. He'd seen Saiou going up against Kenzan and he had no idea of what his chances might be. _I've been doing better, but his deck is so strange._ He refused to back down. His brother's mind could be on the line here. Or even worse, his brother's life.

Tense moments dripped by one by one. Saiou said nothing, only looked at Shou, that same smile on his lips, that expression that said 'you want me to take you seriously?' while at the same time making it plain he didn't. Any moment now, Shou was certain that members of the Society would boil out and try to interfere. That couldn't be allowed. Shou took a step forward. "Are you going to duel me or not?"

"Shou!" It wasn't Saiou who spoke, but three other voices, calling his name one after the other. Shou looked over his shoulder to see Juudai, Kenzan, and Fubuki running toward him. "Shou!" Juudai waved one hand toward him. "Shou, what are you doing? Are you all right?"

"I'm going to duel Saiou so he won't do anything to my brother if I win!" When he said it out loud, Shou wondered if it sounded as hopeless to them as it did to him. Still, all he waited for was Saiou to accept the duel.

Three jaws dropped down at his words. Shou tried not to grin too much; this duel was too important to let anything get in the way. Like his own pride at his beloved aniki's reaction. He turned his attention back to Saiou, hopping that by now the other was ready to duel.

Instead, Saiou hadn't moved a muscle. Shou's eyes narrowed. If he had to, he'd go ahead and make the first move and _force_ Saiou to duel him! How could someone just turn down a duel anyway? He hadn't even invoked the rule of Genex on him, which would've _made_ Saiou accept the duel! Even if it wasn't Genex, it was a _duel_!

"I dr-" The word wasn't halfway out of his mouth before Saiou shook his head.

"As much as I would like to duel you, Marufuji Shou, I have other obligations that I must attend to. Perhaps another time. When the fates are perhaps more in your favor." Saiou's smile widened a fraction of an inch. "Though perhaps you would enjoy observing my duel against your brother. You would all be _most_ welcome to attend."

"You're going to duel Kaiser?" Juudai couldn't help the question falling from his lips. He'd seen Saiou duel twice already and his duel-loving soul ached to experience it one more time. _Maybe I can duel him one of these days._ To face a deck that could accomplish a _Zero_-Turn Kill...his mouth wasn't watering. Really.

Saiou nodded as he turned toward the building. "Tomorrow at sunrise. But don't tell him yet. I'll issue the challenge myself." Without another word, he stepped inside and closed the door, leaving Shou, Juudai, Kenzan, and Fubuki the only people outside there.

Shou stared at the door for a moment, torn between going after him to insist on the duel and running off at top speed to find his brother and warn him against accepting this. _He'd never listen to me._ His shoulders slumped as he turned off his disk. _So much for that. _When was anyone ever going to take him seriously as a duelist?

Juudai patted him on the shoulder a moment later. "Too bad. I bet you would've beat him." Shou didn't even look up; how could Juudai say something like that when he'd never even been given a chance? "So, are you going to watch it?"

_Watch? What?_ Part of Shou's mind still wanted to sleep and he didn't quite understand what the other meant at first. Then it fell into place with a nearly audible click. "Oh. I don't know." He wanted to. But if his brother lost, he didn't think he could stand it. Seeing those eyes that cared nothing for respect was bad enough. Seeing him wrapped in white would be far, far worse. "I guess." Because it would be worse to avoid it and find out later. At least this way he would know from the beginning.

"Great! You can get me up for it, then." Juudai laughed and rubbed the back of his head. Shou tried a small smile and wondered if it looked as bad on him as he thought it did. "Hell Kaiser against Saiou. That's a duel no one should miss!"

_Except maybe Hell Kaiser._ Shou refused to let any of that show in his eyes, though. All he did was smile at Juudai, no matter how stretched and out of place it felt. "We'll be there for it." He would be, he decided. Whatever happened, he would be there for his brother. After all, if he needed to fight to get Ryou back, then he would be there when he fell in the first place.

* * *

><p>Saiou moved through the crowd of Society members without paying any more attention to them than he had to. All they saw, of course, was their prized and precious leader going somewhere to plan the ultimate victory of the Society in Genex.<p>

**Which is the exact truth.** Saiou didn't want to hear that voice. He never did. It was always with him, whether he wanted it or not.

He sat down at the piano, his fingers caressing the keys without even thinking about it. Music helped sometimes, helping him to put everything into perspective and try to make sense of the world. At the very least, it allowed him an escape to a world no one else could follow him to.

**Almost no one else.**

Saiou ignored the voice once again. He didn't delude himself into thinking that it would go away if he did, but he wanted to have what time to himself he could. He _would_ duel Hell Kaiser at dawn, and he would win and this would nudge Yuuki Juudai into doing something as nothing else had. Every other plan had failed, though he couldn't understand why. Didn't Juudai _care_about his friends? Didn't he want to know what Saiou really had planned?

He heard the footsteps even through the music, measured and strong. He didn't look up, though. He just waited.

"What are you doing, Saiou?"

Saiou turned to look at Edo. He didn't play any of the games with him that he would have with others. Edo deserved better than that. "This isn't something that concerns you, Edo." Yet he would not tell everything, either. Edo didn't need to know. Yet.

"Maybe not, but I want to know anyway." Edo took the last few steps to come up beside him. "I want to know about this whole Society, too. Why are you doing all of this? What was going on with Mizuchi in Domino City?" He stared down at the taller man, who only smiled in his most inscrutable manner. "You used to tell me things."

Saiou dropped his head, unable to meet those eyes of Edo's. To anyone else, they were blue chips of ice. Saiou saw the sorrow hidden behind them. More than saw it, he felt it with every word Edo spoke or didn't speak. "I've always told you what you needed to know. This is something you don't."

He hesitated, thoughts tumbling through his mind. _It could be either of them. Or both. Juudai. Or Edo._ He wanted Edo's help. He wanted that years-long friendship to _mean something_, to mean more than just his own grasping of a fragile hope. _I went to him for a reason. I can't just let him go._

Saiou opened his mouth. He would tell Edo everything. Let him know what lived inside of his soul.

**He can't help you.** That thick, sick, twisted voice twined around his heart and soul and wove his words into ways he didn't want. **You belong to me, Saiou Takuma.**

Before Saiou could even consider uttering another word, he rose to his feet, his features contorting into an expression of distance. "Perhaps you'll understand more if you watch me duel against Hell Kaiser tomorrow. At dawn."

He didn't, or wasn't allowed to, wait for an answer before he strode out of the room. Saiou wanted to struggle, to tell Edo _something_ that would help him, to unlock all the secrets of his heart that he'd held in for so long. None of his efforts did anything until he found himself in his room, the door locked, and his body slumped into a chair. He would not be allowed to leave until morning. He knew that now as well as he knew his own name.

"Why do you want Hell Kaiser?" Saiou murmured to himself. Or to the other force inside of himself. "He's not that important." He could get Juudai's attention another way. Somehow. He did have the satellite keys, after all. Shouldn't that do _something_? Why did this demon insist on a relatively meaningless duel?

**Because he dared to defeat one of mine.**That force hated everything as much as he did, or more, but underneath that hate was something else. Something Saiou didn't want to think about.

He didn't like being afraid. He didn't think that other presence did either.

**I fear no human. An insult like this will not go unavenged. He will be _mine_.** Saiou closed his eyes. He shouldn't feel so bad about this. What was Hell Kaiser to him? Nothing and no one. This was only what was right. How could someone so steeped in darkness defeat the pure light, anyway? It wasn't as if he were _Juudai_. He held no power to change destiny.

Saiou could feel his own hands moving to his school-issued PDA to send the challenge. He didn't bother to fight them this time. At dawn, when light dispersed darkness, he would duel Hell Kaiser. And win.

* * *

><p>Tired as he was, once Ryou ate, restlessness seized him. It took only a few minutes to uncover that the various students were in their dorms having dinner or working on homework. Or doing whatever it was the Society of Light did, which he chose not to pry into very closely at the moment. All of it meant one thing to him. <em>No more duels tonight. <em>Not that he objected at the moment. Whatever he wanted to do, that wasn't it.

Staying indoors wasn't an option either. He wanted to _do_ something, and the outdoors beckoned. Tucking his deck into one pocket, he stalked out of the main building and down to the beach. Perhaps spending some time in view of the sand and sea would relax his mind enough so he could rest. If nothing else, it would kill time. Perhaps he'd be able to spy some likely future duel prospects, if any such existed around here. More and more Genex disenchanted him. They were all so _easy_ to beat. Just like in the Pros and in the underground. With no challenges, what was he going to do?

Ryou hadn't been on the beach more than a few minutes before he spied a dark shape ahead of him. Two dark shapes, if he bent his gaze the right way. He frowned, trying to get a better look through the darkening evening. No, just one. He must have mistaken a tree or bush for another person.

"Someone's there." That he heard without a doubt. His eyes narrowed even more as a hint of a chill caressed down his spine. That wasn't normal; June nights didn't have that kind of temperature to them. There was no answer from anyone else, which confirmed his earlier observation of just one person there.

He stepped closer, a mild tinge of curiosity leading him to see just what was going on here. "Who are you?"

The mysterious person stood up straighter, the familiar clink of medals echoing. A Genex duelist? What was one doing out here so late anyway? He'd thought they were all on their way to bed.

"Tachibana Ikkaku, of North School." It wasn't a name he recognized. Ryou took another step and now was close enough to see who stood there. "And you..." The other's voice broke off and he stared harder at Ryou, his eyes widening with shock. "Hell Kaiser? You're Hell Kaiser?"

"Yes." Ryou saw no reason to deny who he was. Tachibana held a fistful of medals up for a moment, then tucked them away into his jacket as he straightened himself up. "Did you want a duel?" Something was odd about this person, and Ryou seldom thought that about anyone. One had to go a long way to surpass Yuuki Juudai for 'odd'.

Tachibana's mouth opened, shaping what Ryou was certain would be an eager desire to do just that. While he'd been intent on going to bed as soon as he could get his mind relaxed, one more duel couldn't hurt. Then Tachibana closed his mouth, eyes narrowing as he glanced at something to his left. "What?"

"I said, did you want a duel?" Ryou didn't like repeating himself and Tachibana's chances of having a duel dropped as soon as he uttered the words. There were far better ways to spend his nights than dueling someone who couldn't hear what he was saying.

The other's gaze shot back to him. "I wasn't talking to _you_." He brought up one hand to touch the pendant that hung around his neck, then looked again to the left. "What do you mean?"

_A duel spirit?_ After all that had happened in his last year, Ryou knew well that they existed, whether or not he could see them himself. The fact he couldn't didn't bother him. He was more disturbed by being treated as if he weren't actually standing there. If this Tachibana's 'partner' wanted to hold conversations with him, then it could be done when Ryou actually wasn't there.

"If you'd rather talk to your cards than duel, I don't have the time to waste on you." Ryou took only a few steps before Tachibana whirled and caught him by the arm. Hell Kaiser's gaze dropped down to the other's hand, eyes narrowing at the sight of the tattoo there. Something about it sent an even more intense chill down his spine than what he'd felt moments earlier. He looked back up, one eyebrow creeping upward as he did. "Do you want to duel or not?"

"Yes." Tachibana's crazed smile was clear even in the shadows. Ryou's gaze followed his for a moment as the other's flicked to one side, a spot where the moonlight was just a bit darker for some reason. His eyes couldn't be going bad on him at this age, could they? "But not tonight. Not just yet, Hell Kaiser. I want to duel you as my _last_ duel of Genex."

"If I dueled you, it would be your last duel of Genex." Ryou replied, shoving the other's hand away when he didn't remove it himself. "But if you want to wait, fine." There was no need to take all of his victories in one day. He wanted to save some for later.

Tachibana looked away again. "Are you sure?" This time Ryou knew that he wasn't being addressed. At least Juudai was polite enough not to treat human beings like they weren't there in the first place! Tachibana needed a few lessons in manners. Too bad he didn't have the inclination to deliver them. "All right."

He turned back to Ryou and nodded, a light in his eyes Ryou knew only too well, the desire for victory, the ache to fight someone stronger than he was. "The duel will be better for both of us when we're the only ones left in Genex. I'll see you then."

_Somehow, I don't think so._ Ryou knew duelists, and even with that light, that desire, he didn't think Tachibana had it in him to make it to the end of Genex. But why disabuse him of the notion so soon? Not to mention, if by some chance Tachibana _did _make it all the way, then Ryou didn't doubt for a moment he could rip victory right from the other's hands, duel spirit or no duel spirit. Power mattered in a duel, nothing more, not how friendly one was with one's cards.

Tachibana settled back down and the sound of medals clinking against one another told Ryou he'd returned to his earlier admiration of success. The dark duelist kept on walking, tossing every thought about Tachibana out of his head. There were far more interesting duelists here to think about anyway.

Shou came to mind, for interesting duelists. His brother's skills grew every day, and Ryou suspected that Shou wanted to duel him. _He's been watching me duel._ He couldn't have a duel without Shou being around there somewhere. _He's learning how I duel. _All to the good. Shou would need all the help he could get against Hell Kaiser.

Ryou kept on walking, the sound of medals chiming fading away as he did. Waves splashed against the sand and the moon rose higher over the ocean, sending a silver stream of light spilling across the island.

_Society of Light._ Ryou's thoughts wandered back to the duel against Asuka. _Stronger, but different. As if she depended on someone else to tell her what to do._ That wasn't the Asuka that he knew. That fresh strength of hers could be worth dueling against again, though, if she used it on her own. If she even could use it on her own.

Was this extra strength something that came from being in the Society? Dueling more people from it could help him figure it out. _Saiou would be the only other person worth it._ From the look he'd seen in the older duelist's eyes, he expected a challenge sooner or later. This Society wasn't the type to just accept it when one of theirs lost to an 'outsider'.

His lips curved upward into a wicked smirk. "Let them try," he murmured. Whatever happened, he was more than ready for them.

His PDA, returned to him for the duration of his stay for Genex, pinged from within his inner coat pocket. _If this is Fubuki wanting to talk again, I'm going to strangle him. _He'd had his fill of Fubuki for the moment. Granted, it had been useful information, but right now, he wanted his peace and quiet. There were too many plans to make and duels to duel to spend what spare time he had doing anything else.

A far different face from Fubuki's cheerful one awaited him, however, as he opened the glass flap. Saiou Takuma smiled back at him. It was as much a warm smile as his own were and Ryou anticipated what he would hear.

"Hell Kaiser, for the sake of the Society of Light, I challenge you to a duel at sunrise tomorrow."

Oh, there was only one answer that he could have _ever_ had for that. He savored the moment first, however. Saiou might not have _said_it in words, but this was about the Society's 'honor'. His lips twisted in a hideous parody of a smirk at the very thought. Honor was something he'd discarded along with respect and giving a damn about anything other than victory.

But let Saiou play his little game of 'honor', of wanting to avenge the loss of his second in command. Hell Kaiser would take the only thing he would ever want from this duel. He would win. _Perhaps Edo will even be watching._ Oh, but _that _would be a sweet garnish if he were. He would re-match against Edo Phoenix one day. He had no doubt about it.

Saiou first, though.

With careless ease he sent back his own message. Two words that said it all.

"I accept."

**To Be Continued**


	7. Battle By Dawn's Light

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing involved in this story unless I invented it myself. This is written for fun, not for profit.  
><strong>Fandom:<strong> Yu-Gi-Oh GX  
><strong>Title:<strong> Symbols of Death: 7-8: Battle By Dawn's Light  
><strong>Characters:<strong> Ryou, Asuka, Saiou  
><strong>Word Count:<strong> chapter: 4,185||story: 29,869  
><strong>Genre:<strong> Drama, Friendship||**Rated:** PG-13  
><strong>Notes:<strong> This takes place during the Genex tournament, between episodes 90 and 91. For reference, Manjoume has left the Society of Light and Ryou has dueled Fubuki.  
><strong>Feedback:<strong> All forms eagerly accepted. Concrit is loved the most, but everything is welcome.  
><strong>Summary:<strong> In his search to change his destiny, Saiou sets his sights on Hell Kaiser. Does the duelist of power stand a chance to defeat the Society's two finest warriors or will he kneel before the Light?

* * *

><p>Duel Academia, like any school, spread news and gossip around a speed that put light to shame. At the break of day the next morning, virtually everyone, students, teachers, and visitors alike, stood outside Obelisk White, waiting for a duel unlike any other to begin.<p>

"This isn't a Genex duel." Saiou declared as he took his place just a few paces beyond the door. "This is for the Society."

Ryou shrugged, an anticipatory smirk on his lips. "As you wish."

"Which means that when I defeat you, you'll join the Society of Light." Saiou added, sending ripples of delight through those Society members who stood and watched, and ripples of unease through everyone else.

Shou shivered, standing to one side where he could see his brother's face as they dueled. "Be careful," he murmured, knowing that Ryou wouldn't hear him. Not that Ryou would've listened if he had. But he said them nevertheless.

"We'll see about that." Ryou's smirk widened as he shuffled his deck. He'd spent most of the night dreaming and planning about this duel. Now it was time to see it unfold. "I'll take the first turn."

"As you wish. But I should warn you." Saiou's eyes glittered in the morning sun, a hint of otherworldliness lining them. "I _will_ win this duel. Your own power will be your downfall and none other."

"Then let's get to it!" Ryou wasn't going to waste his time worrying about Saiou's predictions. "I draw!" Excellent. His deck wanted to play and he was more than willing to play with it. "I play Angel's Charity, drawing three cards from my deck and discarding two." He tossed Cyber Dragon and Hell Dragon into the graveyard; they'd be of more use there than on the field for the moment.

Saiou didn't even twitch an eyebrow; he just continued to watch as Ryou made his play. He knew how this duel would end, regardless of all the struggling Hell Kaiser suffered.

"Now, I summon Cyber Dark Keel and equip it with Hell Dragon from my graveyard!" A sleek dragon of dark metal roared up in front of him, with the pitchfork-tailed black dragon held between its talons. Too bad he couldn't attack on his first turn. Dealing Saiou twenty-eight hundred points of damage would've been delicious. All in good time. "I set one card and end my turn."

"Draw!" Saiou pulled his new card. He didn't have to think about his move; he knew what it would be already. "I summon Arcana Force IV-The Emperor!" A creature rose up behind Saiou, dark wings and red spheres scattered all over them. Above the monster shimmered his card, turning with exquisite precision. "Declare when you wish it to stop to determine what his effect will be, Hell Kaiser."

Ryou snorted; random choice had never interested him. Still, at the moment it was what he had to do. He watched as the card continue to turn, attempting to determine when the best moment would be. His duelist instincts stirred. Not yet...not yet...not _yet_...

"Now!" The card halted in the upright position and Saiou smiled again.

"From this moment on, all Arcana Force monsters will gain an extra five hundred attack points. Thank you, Hell Kaiser." Saiou wasn't done with his turn yet, however. He pulled another card out and flipped it around. "I activate Suit of Swords X. Choose which position it stops in to see its effect."

"I get the idea." Ryou watched once again as the card, this one patterned with (appropriately) ten swords thrust into the ground in front of a crescent moon, spun overhead. Again he listened to that duelist part of him. "Now!"

Again, upright, and again, Saiou smiled. "When Suit of Swords X lands in the upright position, then my opponent's monsters are all destroyed." Swords shot from the card, piercing through Hell Dragon and Cyber Dark Keel without hesitation. Ryou didn't move; he knew what was going to happen next. "Now, Arcana Force IV-The Emperor! Direct attack!"

Each of the red spheres that covered the Emperor glowed before shooting out brilliant scarlet beams, each one hitting him dead on. He hissed under his breath a little, but remained unmoved and unimpressed, as his life points dropped by nineteen hundred. Saiou would have to do far better than that to impress _him_.

"I set a card. Turn end." Saiou folded his arms over his chest and stared at his opponent. "I spoke to your brother about this and I believe you should hear it as well. If you continue to walk your current path, then before six months have passed, you will die, Hell Kaiser."

"If that's supposed to make me give up this duel, you're wrong." Ryou drew his next card and shot a cold glare to Saiou. Mind games were all a part of dueling, but this bordered on ridiculous. "If you can tell the future, then you should know that what will always matter to me is _victory_, nothing more."

Saiou sighed and lowered his head, holding back a chuckle by the thinnest of margins. "I do know. Yet when someone's fate is as deadly as yours, I cannot help but want to help them. Choose another path. Walk away from the darkness and into the light and you'll live, Hell Kaiser." At least for a little while longer.

"I summon Cyber Dark Edge." Ryou had better things to do with his time than listen to Saiou's moaning and wailings about events that hadn't even happened yet. He would at least make the so-called psychic complain about what _was_ happening. "And equip Hell Dragon to it from the graveyard!" At least Hell Dragon had returned to the graveyard where he could use it again. Using it with Edge would be even better than with Keel, given Edge's effect.

He pointed toward Saiou, not bothering to keep the savage grin from his lips. "I activate Cyber Dark Edge's monster effect: by reducing its attack in half, I can attack you directly! Counter Bomb!"

Cyber Dark Edge could easily destroy the Emperor, but that wouldn't cause anywhere near the damage to Saiou that a direct attack would. When it came to fourteen hundred points of damage against nine hundred, Ryou would choose the fourteen hundred every time.

Saiou only took a step back, covering his eyes with his hand, and waited, the edges of his lips turned up into a smile. Ryou looked forward to finishing the duel and wiping that look off his face.

"I set two cards and end my turn." Both of those would come in handy in the near future. No psychic powers were necessary for Ryou to know that. This next turn would prove interesting. Did Saiou even have any cards that could get past his Cyber Dark Edge? Or would he use spells or traps to destroy it?

Or would something more interesting present itself? Hell Kaiser couldn't wait to find out.

Saiou drew for his turn and glanced over his cards, more for the effect than for anything else. He pitied Hell Kaiser, fighting so hard for a cause and a duel that was already lost. _It will be worth it when it's over._

"I play the spell card Pentacle of Ace." Just above and ahead of him, the card's holographic double appeared, turning over and over. "Choose where it lands, Hell Kaiser."

"They're your cards. Why aren't _you _choosing?" Ryou grumbled even as the card spun. That would make more sense to him.

"Because I already know how they're going to land," Saiou replied with that same soft smile. "It wouldn't be fair otherwise."

"I don't care about fair." Ryou didn't even bother to watch the card to determine his choice this time. From what he could see of the effect, it wouldn't make a difference worth caring about for him. "Stop." Heads.

Saiou's life points counted up another five hundred as he drew a card. "Thank you, Hell Kaiser. As for your objections to choosing where the cards fall, think of it as controlling your destiny. Though so very few can _change _destiny." He paused, lowering his cards so he could look directly at Hell Kaiser. "Are you one of them?"

"Destiny is what you make of it." Ryou declared, his thoughts flickering back to his duel against Edo and the other's own assertion that his victory had been foretold in their duel. _Perhaps it was. If it was, it only foretold my destiny as Hell Kaiser!_

The other laughed, tilting his head back as he did so. "We shall see, Hell Kaiser, we shall see." He drew a card from his hand. "I play Choice of Fate. You choose a card from my hand and if it's a monster card, then I can Special Summon it."

"So I don't have to choose from a spinning card this time. Good." Ryou eyed the cards in Saiou's hand. This could be as dangerous as choosing when Juudai played A Hero Emerges, and for the same reason. Almost anything could lurk there.

"What you choose is not determined by me or by you, but by fate. Fate has already declared that I will win this duel. Nothing you can do or not do will change that, Hell Kaiser. It would be wiser of you to accept it."

"Don't hold your breath waiting for that." Hell Kaiser gestured to one of the cards. "I choose the card on the end."

The smile that slashed across Saiou's face was twin to the kind of smile Ryou himself smiled when summoning his most powerful monsters. "I Special Summon Arcana Force XVIII-The Moon!" What emerged on the field was difficult to describe, a sort of armored alien _thing_ with long metallic arms and a multitude of metallic tentacles in place of legs. Inside of it was a blue-headed alien, fingers pressed against the glass window that kept it within.

What interested Ryou more was the attack strength: twenty-eight hundred, equal to Cyber Dark Edge at the moment. "By the effect of the Emperor, the Moon's attack points rise by five hundred!" Saiou declared, shooting one long, slender arm toward Hell Kaiser. "Attack Cyber Dark Edge!"

There was no way that Ryou would let _that_ happen. "I activate Call of the Living Dead. Cyber Dragon, be reborn!" Or born, technically, as he'd never summoned it in this duel, but why be picky about language?

The Moon, head tilted back and a faint glow forming around its face, began to relax as Cyber Dragon roared before Hell Kaiser. The monster wasn't as strong as Cyber Dark Edge, but that wasn't why Ryou really wanted it out there. "Which are you going to attack, Saiou? Cyber Dark Edge or Cyber Dragon?" It would be one or the other, if he attacked at all.

"Cyber Dragon is your new target!" Saiou declared to his monster. Ryou waited less than the space of one breath to activate his next facedown card.

"Trap card, open! Attack Reflector Unit! I tribute my Cyber Dragon to summon Cyber Barrier Dragon in attack mode!" Welding the light and dark sides of the Cyber deck together had given him more power than he'd ever had before. Power that would now lead him to winning this duel. "Cyber Barrier's monster effect is to negate the first attack from my opponent's monster."

At his words, Cyber Barrier Dragon lifted its head, the frill around it extending as the effect went into action. Saiou nodded, the light around the Moon's face fading away. "My battle phase hasn't yet ended, however. Arcana Force IV: The Emperor! Attack Cyber Barrier Dragon!"

_Just what I thought he'd do._ Cyber Barrier Dragon had only eight hundred attack points and the Emperor finished it off with a single strike, dropping Ryou's life points yet again, this time down to a thousand.

"Turn end." The Society of Light erupted into cheers; Saiou by now had inflicted more damage and had more and stronger monsters on the field than Hell Kaiser did. He also held the lead in life points, twenty-six hundred to Ryou's thousand. There was no way that their master would lose.

"He's not doing so well, is he?" Shou hadn't taken his eyes off the field for a moment. There was a way for his brother to win. It couldn't happen any differently. His brother would never become one of the Society. He would remain Hell Kaiser.

"Don't worry about it. It's still early in the duel," Juudai pointed out. "Anything can happen, right up until the end. You know that." He'd told Shou that enough times, after all.

"I guess." Shou bit his lip, still watching as Ryou prepared to draw his card. Before he could, though, Saiou struck again.

"Trap, activate! Tour of the Grim Reaper!" The head of the Society gestured to activate the trap card he'd set before. From it rose an armored figure with a scythe in its hands that leaned toward Ryou. "Should this card land heads-up, you'll be unable to summon any monsters on this turn. Should it land in the reverse position, then I can't summon any monsters on _my_ next turn." He nodded at the irritated expression in Hell Kaiser's eyes. "And this is a permanent trap. During every one of your standby phases, one of us will lose the ability to summon a monster."

What Saiou did not tell Ryou was that he wouldn't care if Tour of the Grim Reaper affected him or not. The one monster card in his hand was one that he had no intentions of summoning.

Again the card spun and again Ryou made his choice, no matter how annoyed he was by it. _It can land in his favor all it wants. I'll still win in the end._

"Oh, wow...Hell Kaiser can't summon anything!" The collective murmur went up as the card landed in the upright position. "Saiou-sama's going to finish him!"

_We'll just see about that._ Not being able to summon didn't mean he couldn't _attack _and Cyber Dark Edge was perfect for attacking. "By reducing Cyber Dark Edge's attack in half, I attack directly!"

Another fourteen hundred damage and two set cards later, Ryou ended his turn. Saiou still had the advantage in cards, life points, and monsters, but Hell Kaiser took none of that into account. He wanted to win. He _would_win. There was nothing more he needed to think about.

"I activate Cup of Ace!" Saiou chose the card he'd just drawn to begin his turn with. A glowing golden cup shimmered in between the two of them as once again Ryou had to make his decision on where the spinning card would stop.

_He'll think this means the duel turns in his favor now. _Hell Kaiser's mind was an open book to Saiou. He had to focus to read it, which was a trifle difficult to do in the middle of a duel, but he knew how the other thought nevertheless.

"Stop!" And this time, the card landed in the reverse position.

"Congratulations, Hell Kaiser. You may draw two cards from your deck. Use them well." Saiou smiled in approval before he struck his next blow. "Next, I activate Arcantic Deathscythe. I choose one Arcana Force monster from my deck and send it to the graveyard. Whenever I destroy one of your monsters in battle this turn, I can inflict damage equal to its attack to you." The Chariot went on its way to the graveyard and Saiou readied the next phase of his plan. "Now, Arcana Force XVIII-The Moon! Attack Cyber Dark Edge!"

Silver light gathered on the face of The Moon and shot across the field, blasting at Hell Kaiser's monster. Ryou took one step back, but rallied without hesitation. "I send Hell Dragon to the graveyard to keep Cyber Dark Edge on the field!" That didn't stop him from taking five hundred points of damage, but he still had his monster, which he needed more than he needed Hell Dragon.

Not that he didn't have other plans. He _always_ had other plans.

"Arcana Force IV: The Emperor! Attack Cyber Dark Edge!" Now that Hell Dragon was in the graveyard, his monster was more vulnerable. Saiou's creature sliced, sending Edge to the graveyard in a flash of light and a cry of pain from Edge itself. In most duels, that would've been the end. Hell Kaiser wasn't most duelists.

"I activate Power Wall! For every card I send to the graveyard from my deck, I reduce my battle damage by one hundred!" And he set everything up for what would be his last attack of the duel.

Eleven cards tossed on the ground before him and murmurs from those who hadn't yet seen him play that card echoed all around. He still had only five hundred life points, but it was enough. Enough to survive on, however. Enough to win the duel.

Saiou's turn wasn't over with yet. "I activate the effect of Arcanatic Deathscythe, dealing eight hundred points of damage to you directly!"

"_I_ activate Fusion Guard!" Ryou shot back without a moment's hesitation. "I send one fusion monster from my Fusion deck to the graveyard to negate that effect damage!" And he knew just which one he was choosing. Everything lined up just the way he wanted it to. Destiny be damned.

"Turn end." Saiou smiled. Everything was falling out just as he had known it would. He glanced at the one card left in his hand. Soon. Soon it would be over.

Before Ryou drew, there was something else to do. "Tour of the Grim Reaper, activate!" Again this would settle on if Ryou could summon in this turn or not.

_My destiny is to win this duel!_ Ryou snapped the command out after only a few seconds. "Stop!" This was it. This was the key that he needed.

The Society of Light collectively stopped breathing for a second. Misawa broke the silence. "S...Saiou-sama can't summon next turn?" That couldn't be right. How could the fall of the cards have turned _against_ their master?

"I tell you again, if you fail to move from the path you walk, then you won't see another spring in this world." Saiou's tone was tender, supplicating, aching for Ryou to choose another path, to save his own life. "Does your life mean that little to you, Hell Kaiser?"

Ryou tilted his head back and eyed the other. "How exactly am I going to die?" If it were by something stupid, like crossing a street, then maybe he'd think about changing it.

"My sight doesn't show me everything." One tear glimmered in Saiou's right eye. Oddly enough, at the same time, he looked as if he were holding back a twisted smirk. "I only know that you will die and that it will be because you walk this path of dark power." He concentrated, bending his will to seeing what lay before Ryou. The curtain of the future refused to part this time, however. "The Light and all of its wisdom can save you from that, Hell Kaiser."

"What makes you think I want saving? If I'm going to die, then whoever will kill me will have to fight me for it. I won't just hand it over to anyone, not even to you!" Hell Kaiser's eyes glimmered with conviction. He had no more time for this idiocy. "I activate Overload Fusion! From my graveyard, I remove Cyberdark Edge, Cyberdark Keel, and Cyberdark Horn to summon the Armored Black Dragon-Cyber Dark Dragon!"

The three monsters named appeared before him briefly before merging into their far more powerful fused form. He tilted his head back to get a better look at it. Beautiful. Simply beautiful. Better than beautiful, _deadly_ and about to get more so. "Now, I activate Samsara Dogma, and change all of the monsters in both of our graveyards to Dragon-type!" This was why he'd played Fusion Guard and sent the monster he'd chosen there. "I equip _Cyber End Dragon_ to Cyber Dark Dragon!"

His former ace monster now was held in the clutches of his new prize, circuitry binding the two of them together and increasing Cyber Dark Dragon's attack by four thousand points. Now, one more step to make. "Cyber Dark Dragon's attack increases by one hundred for _every card in my graveyard_!"

Shou stirred; every time he saw Power Wall and how his brother used it to power up this new monster of his, he hated it even more. It was a _good_ move; he couldn't deny that, but it was the _way_ that Ryou did it, throwing his cards to the ground as if they were trash, that tore into his soul. _You shouldn't treat your cards like that. Ever._

Ryou's attention focused entirely on the battle before him. This was what he'd ached for since the duel began. "Battle! Cyber Dark Dragon, attack the Moon!" It didn't matter how powerful Saiou's monster was; his outclassed it by far, having six thousand seven hundred attack points to the Moon's three thousand three hundred. Enough of a difference to not only destroy the Moon, but to finish off the Society's leader as well. This duel was _his_! "Full Darkness Burst!"

Cyber Dark Dragon raised its head and blasted toward Saiou with all of the strength born from Ryou's journeys through Hell. Energy roared across the stream, blasting the Moon into nothingness and sending Saiou back a few steps. Ryou stepped forward himself, watching for the drop of the other's life points, _knowing_it would happen.

"I discard Temperance from my hand to reduce all of my battle damage to zero." Saiou slid the last card in his hand into the graveyard and turned toward Ryou with a warm, almost mocking smile. He'd known how that turn would end since before the duel itself began in the first place.

Once again, silence reigned over the battlefield. Once again, it was one of the Society of Light who broke it. "This is why we serve Saiou-sama! No one can defeat him!" Asuka declared, her eyes large and full of light. Saiou would avenge her defeat and bring Ryou into the Light where he belonged!

"No..." Shou shook his head until he feared it might come off. "No, it's not over yet. He's got De-Fusion. Or he can attack again. Something." It wasn't possible. It wasn't _right_. It wasn't _happening_.

Ryou's lips sealed into a thin line. He glanced at his final three cards. _Cyber Phoenix. Quick Summon. Cybernetic Zone._ Any of them could be useful in any other situation, except this one. What he wouldn't have given for Dimensional Induced Explosion right now. _This isn't over yet. He can't summon on this turn. Even if he could, there's nothing he could call out that would be able to defeat my Cyber Dark Dragon._

For a moment his fingers hovered over Cyber Phoenix's card. He still had a Normal Summon for that turn. _No. I don't need it. _Saiou could only draw one card and he had nothing facedown on the field and only one monster. This duel was his still, he just had to wait for it. "End turn."

"Nii-san..." Shou didn't like this. His brother _never_ hesitated.

"He's not done yet, Shou!" Juudai spoke up, nudging his best friend's shoulder. There was never any doubt in _his _mind on how this was going to end. "You should know not to underestimate him!"

Shou glanced up at him for a moment, then back to his brother. As much as he wanted to have Juudai's kind of faith, he still remembered how just talking to Saiou the day before had clouded his mind to some degree. If Saiou could do that to Ryou, then what would happen? "I know, but Saiou's tricky. I don't trust him."

"So don't. Trust your brother." Juudai thought this didn't even need saying, but it was Shou. Sometimes you had to say things.

_Saiou's last draw of the duel._ This would settle everything, and every duelist there knew it. With the strength of Hell Kaiser's monster dwarfing everything that Saiou had and with Saiou unable to summon for this turn, Ryou's victory couldn't be stopped on his next. If that next turn came.

"Draw!" Saiou flipped the card around without looking at it. "I play Ace of Sword. Choose carefully, Hell Kaiser. Choose well. Choose life: or death."

Over and over the card spun as Ryou watched it. _This is the end._ No matter which way it landed, one monster would be destroyed, and that monster's controller would take damage equal to said monster's attack points. If it landed upright, then he would lose. If reversed, then Saiou lost. He had to choose with _care_ this time.

His heart raced a little faster as he realized just how much lay in this final choosing.

"In your hands lies the last move, Hell Kaiser." Saiou murmured, his voice drifting across the field. "Choose."

"Stop!" Ryou's voice cracked through the morning air, and the Ace of Swords stopped.

Upright.

**To Be Continued**


	8. Hell Kaiser's Dark Path

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing involved in this story unless I invented it myself. This is written for fun, not for profit.  
><strong>Fandom:<strong> Yu-Gi-Oh GX  
><strong>Title:<strong> Symbols of Death: 8-8: Hell Kaiser's Dark Path  
><strong>Characters:<strong> Ryou, Asuka, Saiou  
><strong>Word Count:<strong> chapter: 4,071||story: 33,940  
><strong>Genre:<strong> Drama, Friendship||**Rated:** PG-13  
><strong>Notes:<strong> This takes place during the Genex tournament, between episodes 90 and 91. For reference, Manjoume has left the Society of Light and Ryou has dueled Fubuki.  
><strong>Feedback:<strong> All forms eagerly accepted. Concrit is loved the most, but everything is welcome.  
><strong>Summary:<strong> In his search to change his destiny, Saiou sets his sights on Hell Kaiser. Does the duelist of power stand a chance to defeat the Society's two finest warriors or will he kneel before the Light?

* * *

><p><strong>Hell Kaiser.<strong>

Ryou's fingers flexed and the awareness that he was _not_ where he'd been intruded itself upon his mind. This wasn't Duel Academia. This was nowhere. A white expanse that stretched in all directions.

He hated the sight of it already.

**Hell Kaiser.**

His eyes narrowed. "Who are you?" The voice didn't sound like Saiou's, or anyone else that he knew. It didn't even quite sound like a voice, more like an awareness of something inside of his mind.

He liked that even less. His mind was his own space. No intruders allowed.

**You've lost, Hell Kaiser. You belong to me now.**Whoever or whatever this was, that thick sense of satisfaction poured over him. Ryou pushed it away.

"I don't belong to anyone." He was Hell Kaiser. He belonged to himself and to the path that he chose for himself, as he always had. Losing a duel wouldn't change that.

**Not so. You know what happens when one loses to any of those who are mine.** Images flickered through his mind of the duel he'd watched the day before with Fubuki. **They are all mine. Just as you are.**

"I don't think so." Those idiots could follow a leader all they wanted. Hell Kaiser had other things to do with his time.

Amusement washed through the satisfaction. **Such as win duels?**

"Yes." There was no denying that, after all. It was what he did. Maybe he didn't win them all, but it was what he would rather do than trail around after anyone else like a mindless zombie.

If whatever it was that spoke to him had been human, it might've laughed. **Does Saiou look like a mindless zombie to you? Or any of my other children?**

"They look worse." At least zombies were safely dead and couldn't be held at fault for trying to eat someone's brains. The Society of Light consisted of living people who wanted to swallow up the minds and hearts of everyone they met.

Whatever this was, it could hear his thoughts as well as he himself could. **We are a family, Hell Kaiser. One great family that stretches across the world. Don't you want to feel that warmth? That welcome?**

"I have a family. What would I want with yours?" He hardly spent that much time with the family he did have anyway. Finding a new one wouldn't make any difference.

**One that doesn't speak to you.**

"One that I don't speak to." Ryou corrected with a tilt of his head. "I don't need to. If I did, I would. I don't need them anymore than I need anyone who calls _you_ family." It didn't matter that he didn't know who or what this voice was. He didn't care one way or the other. He had too much of his own business to take care of.

**Your brother worries about you. He'll challenge you to a duel soon enough. To change your ways from the path of power.**

Ryou wanted to roll his eyes. "I know." He'd known that the day would come when he and Shou would duel one another ever since Shou first took up dueling. It was inevitable.

**Wouldn't you like to win that duel?**

"What makes you think I won't?" Ryou challenged back without hesitation. Shou's improvement as a duelist was impressive, but not enough. Not yet.

Again, he was certain if the other was human or had a face, at least, there would've been a sly smile on thin lips. **You lost this duel. You do remember what happened the last time you lost a duel, don't you?** Again memories stirred up, spooned from the dark waters of his mind not by his own will but by the power that spoke to him now. Edo using Sparkman and Spark Gun to have Cyber Twin Dragon switch from attack to defense, the sensation of Power Bond's effect shuddering through him, the humiliation of realizing he'd _ignored_ Edo's face-down card in his rush to victory...**Yes, that's it. That's not all, is it?**

Ryou's fists clenched as more memories surged around him, duel after duel, each one more shaming than the last. Catcalls and insults echoed in his mind, _crap Kaiser_, _show us a real duel_, _loser_, _pathetic_...

"No." With an almost visible wince he shoved them all away. Those duels were over, done with. "I don't know what you're trying to do, but it's not going to work."

**I only want to help you. I've helped many people like you. I even have children in the Pro Leagues. You could be one of them.** Newer images, faces he'd never seen before in some cases, in others ones he'd seen at a distance, all of them Pro League duelists, now reflected from unseen mirrors. **You could be at the top of the league in no time at all. You could even face him.**A face he'd only seen on television now appeared to him.

"D.D." No one knew what the letters stood for. It was only known that he'd risen up through the ranks of the pros several years earlier and remained at the top, defeating all challengers every year. The image widened, until he saw himself dueling D.D., saw the other's life points drop to zero, and his name echoed in his ears, chanted by thousands of voices.

_Hell Kaiser, Hell Kaiser, Hell Kaiser._

It was a tempting offer. Ryou would admit that much. That would be the ultimate victory, to stand at the very top of the Pro Leagues, against a duelist of that skill. Only dueling someone like Kaiba Seto or Mutou Yuugi would make it better.

White light swirled around him and his black coat began to fade. **Then be mine. Be one of the Society of Light. You saw how your ruthless ways didn't do you any good against Saiou.**

For a moment, Ryou could see himself in shining white, standing beside Saiou, dueling against not just D.D., but Edo once again, this time turning the other's tactics against him, crushing him, humiliating him far more than Ryou himself had been. Others stood against him and all failed. No one could stand against him, the White Kaiser.

"No." He shoved at that energy as he had at the memories, denying it with all of his soul. "I know why I lost that duel." The last monster card in his hand could've changed everything, no matter how Saiou's final card fell out. Cyber Phoenix could have negated the targeting of Cyber Dark Dragon and there was nothing else Saiou could've done. At best he could've moved his monsters into defense mode and there was nothing that said Ryou's own next draw couldn't have negated that.

**You want to win duels. Can you win them without me? Your ruthlessness didn't serve you enough here.**

Ryou knew the answer to that as a slow, dark smile tugged at his lips. "I didn't win because I wasn't ruthless _enough_. That is something you can't give me. That's what I can do for myself."

**You deny me?**Anger on the level that could destroy entire solar systems rocked around him. Ryou didn't care. Let the light rage.

"I deny you and I deny everything to do with you. I'll be Hell Kaiser until I die."

**If that is the path you wish, then you'll not need to wait six months to die!** From every corner came the hissing tone, fury building with each moment. **You'll taste death before a week passes!**

"So be it, then." Ryou shrugged, far more pleased to see that his coat once more shone with darkest black. White wasn't his color at all. "Bring it on."

* * *

><p>Cheers and shouts filled his ears as white light faded away. Ryou shook his head; had he been talking to someone? He couldn't remember. Just the image of light and white and the determination to walk his own path, whatever the consequences.<p>

A quick look around showed just who made all the noise: the Society of Light. Now he remembered: he'd lost the duel to Saiou. All because he hadn't played Cyber Phoenix. _Next time. _Perhaps there would or would not be another duel against Saiou, but the next time he dueled, it would be with every bit of relentless strength he possessed, not giving his opponent one hint of a quarter.

"Well, Marufuji Ryou?" Saiou stood across from him, a smug little smile on his lips. "What do you have to say? Have you seen the truth?"

"It's the same truth I saw without your 'help'." Ryou replied without hesitation, ignoring the murmurs of shock that rolled through the spectators. "I haven't changed my mind about the path that I walk, no matter where it takes me. Even if it's into death."

Juudai's cheer of joy drowned out even the Society of Light. "I knew you'd still be you, Hell Kaiser! Congratulations! That was an awesome duel!" Ryou didn't even bother to look at the Osiris Red. He busied himself gathering his cards instead.

"Are you sure you're all right?" Shou moved a little closer to him. Ryou paused long enough to stare down at his younger brother, eyes brittle with annoyance.

"Yes." He bit the word off; he wasn't going to spend the rest of today having someone, anyone, follow him around asking if he were all right. One duel lost wasn't going to ruin his day, or his chances in Genex, or anything else.

Shou shifted back now, biting his lip. Ryou paid no more attention to him than he would have to anyone else. The next person to slide up was harder to ignore, however. Fubuki smacked him hard on the back.

"Should've known you were too damned stubborn to get taken in like that!" He bent a little closer and whispered into his friend's ear. "Do you think you figured out why Asuka did, though? I mean, anything that can help us get her back..."

Ryou held back a sigh. Fubuki would never change. "No." Faint whispers of promises and offers of all he could've ever dreamed of wafted through his thoughts and faded away like morning mist. "You'll have to help her yourself." Which was what he'd told Fubuki in the beginning, after all. Not to mention he didn't know if Asuka wanted help.

He wasn't surprised to see a bit of a pout flicker across Fubuki's face. "You're no help."

"I wasn't trying to be." He had much more important things to do than help with other people's problems, such as having duels, winning duels, and thinking about winning duels.

Ryou finished packing his deck back together and threw a quick look at Saiou. His former opponent stood where he was, arms folded over his chest, eyes narrowed, staring at him. Ryou stared back. _He looks paler._He didn't think it was possible for Saiou to have lost any more color than he'd had, but it was so.

No, perhaps 'pale' wasn't the right word. Sallow came to mind; the faintest hint of yellow in Saiou's skin and eyes. Sick was another word. What was worse was the look in his eyes, a look of cold, inhuman hatred, such as even Hell Kaiser had never experienced before.

**You'll pay.** The voice echoed strongly in his mind, one that reeked both of Saiou and of something else, something old and incredibly powerful beyond human understanding of the word. **You'll pay, Hell Kaiser.**

Hell Kaiser turned away. _Bring it on._ Whatever it was, he would fight until the end to remain himself.

The crowd parted for him to pass through. He would duel some of them later, he suspected. There would be many Society members convinced that they could beat him too now, not to mention pros and others who would be willing to jump on the chance to defeat him. He had no doubts they would all fall before him as well. Someone like Saiou didn't come along every day of the week.

That death-dealing gaze bored into his back until he was out of sight of the White dorm. He didn't doubt that if whatever that was were capable of it, he would be dead already. On some level, he was almost surprised he wasn't anyway. Whatever it was, Saiou or otherwise, it hated him.

No matter. It wasn't the first and likely enough not the last person to hate him and if it couldn't follow through on its promises of swift death, Ryou wasn't going to worry himself about the matter. Right now, breakfast at Tome-san's was a far more interesting thought than being murdered by whatever it was that wore Saiou's face.

* * *

><p>"He's all right." Shou murmured as his brother headed out of sight. Though he wasn't sure if 'all right' was the right way to think of it, given that Ryou still chose power over respect. <em>I'll be the one to show him the way of respect is the right way.<em>His big brother had shown him that once and now he just needed reminding of that.

"Told you he would be!" Juudai, standing right next to him, heard him clearly and patted him on the back. "I don't think I've ever seen a duel like that before." He shot a look at Saiou, who still followed Hell Kaiser with his eyes. "I wonder if he'd be willing to duel me."

Saiou turned toward him, his jacket flaring with the movement. "Not today, Yuuki Juudai." His lips turned up into a smile. At least, it looked like a smile on the surface. Most of those who saw it (and who weren't part of the Society of Light) weren't all that sure.

"That means someday, though, right?" Juudai replied, grinning. There was something off about Saiou and this whole Society but that didn't in any way mean that he couldn't get a good duel out of it, right?

Saiou's smile (or whatever it was) only deepened before he gestured to the rest of the Society to follow him and they all marched back inside. Juudai shrugged; he'd figure it all out sooner or later. It wasn't like they were on a time limit to get this solved. His stomach rumbled, reminding him that he hadn't bothered with breakfast before coming out to watch the duel.

"Come on, let's go get something to eat." He rubbed the back of his head, putting all thoughts of the duel out of his mind for the moment. Some of it had been kind of weird, especially the ending, but everything ended well, so far as he could guess. That meant food returned to the uppermost portion of his thoughts.

Kenzan nodded eagerly, his stomach rumbling every bit as loudly as Juudai's own had. "Yeah! Watching that duel made me even hungrier!"

"I'll be there later." Shou said, his own thoughts turning more toward dueling as he threw one more look to the shining citadel of the Society. _I've got to become good enough to beat him._That meant one and only one thing: dueling. More dueling than he'd done before. He had to fight. He had to win.

It would take the strongest respectful dueling to turn his brother away from power. Shou knew he didn't have that strength. Not yet. But he would.

* * *

><p>Saiou dared go nowhere else but to his room. The demands of food stirred strong in him, but fury boiled to such heights he didn't think he could pick up anything without destroying it. He was a trifle surprised that the floor beneath his feet wasn't shattering with how angry he was.<p>

No, not him. _It_. He shook his head a little; it was getting harder and harder to distinguish the two of them.

**That is your fate.**Words he'd heard a hundred times, a thousand times, echoed from the other side of him. He didn't have the strength right now to refuse it. Instead, he made certain the rest of the Society went on to breakfast while he took the stairs to his room and closed and locked the door behind himself.

Almost as soon as he did, one of his windows cracked, as did the door to the walk-in closet, falling half off its hinges at little more than a fierce violet-eyed look.

**Yes...** Dark satisfaction twisted through him at the destruction, small as it was. He moved farther into the room and with every step, something fell over, shattered, or broke, until the room itself resembled more a disaster area than anywhere a normal human might live. **You're not a normal human. Doesn't this remind you of _home_?**

Saiou shuddered, the images conjured up by the word ones he didn't want to think of. Not the neat little apartment where he and Mizuchi had lived as children. No, what that demon referred to was the endless series of holes and underpasses and bridges he and his sister had lived in for so many long, aching years.

In an attempt to get his mind off it, he sat down in one of the few chairs that had so far escaped being twisted into an unrecognizable mess and stared into the mirror. "He refused you." He knew that this Light and Hell Kaiser had spoken, though he hadn't seen or heard what they'd talked about. Sometimes the Light permitted him to see and hear everything. Sometimes it didn't.

His reflection hissed back at him, enough rage contained in that to shatter the mirror, though it still remained whole. **He'll be one of those first to die when SORA is mine.**

That, Saiou knew, was how the Light said 'yes'. There were few who had the strength to turn away from the Light and most of those had the protection of other powers. Yuuki Juudai, Tyranno Kenzan...they weren't properly human. But Marufuji Ryou was. Except in one respect, it seemed: his unshakeable will to walk his own path.

His lips thinned, or rather, the reflection of his lips did. **Take it out. Now.**

Saiou could not disobey; even if he'd tried, the Light had more than enough control over him to send his body moving the way it wanted. Not that he would've tried very hard. The thought of having all of that power at his command was more tantalizing than he wanted to admit. No one would _ever_ mock him or tease him or ignore him or whisper about him so long as he had the destructive power of SORA in his hands.

He set the briefcase on the table and lifted the lid. The keys rested inside and he ran his fingers down each of them. Such little toys that held the fate of the world in their existence.

Without consulting him, his hands began to close around one of the keys. _No._ He couldn't do it. Couldn't let himself do it. Couldn't let _it_ do it. He set his jaw and pulled back, straining with every ounce of control he could muster. "The world's destiny is not ...this!" He knew it; as much as he knew his own fate was to host this monstrosity and to at least _try _to make it happen.

**The world's destiny is mine to control, mine to decide, and I say there will be _light_!** His hands shot forward again and Saiou just managed to slam the briefcase shut instead of seizing the keys, stumbling back, just managing to steady himself on the back of the chair. Perhaps...perhaps it would be better to give them to someone else? Someone who could keep them safe? **No**.

With less than a heartbeat of effort, the Light crushed that thought out of existence. **You'll need to build a deck**. Another plan surged up in its place and Saiou closed his eyes, the fight slipping away from him. **Hell Kaiser is nothing but a temporary inconvenience. Yuuki Juudai is still the most important concern.**

Saiou found himself seated back in the chair, a selection of cards in front of him. If Juudai couldn't be controlled by the Light, then the Light had no use for him. Yuuki Juudai must die. He already had the perfect tool for the job awaiting his least word. _Tenjoin Asuka. You will be the one who destroys the Herald of the Gentle Darkness._.

He began to sort through the cards, knowing which ones he wanted without even having to look at them. It would take days, perhaps even a week or two, to get this new deck at its most perfect, but he had time. No one could touch him. They would all pay for what they'd done, for what they'd thought about him.

They would pay in blood and in light.

* * *

><p>Ryou stood by the lighthouse, casting his gaze over the ocean. Loathe as he was to admit it, this place soothed his soul more than any other save a dueling field. His stomach full of warm food and one spectacular duel already taken care of for the day, he turned his thoughts to something else.<p>

_Why would I die? I'm not sick. I'm not injured. I doubt anyone is going to jump out and murder me._If someone tried that, they would have their hands full, he knew. Fighting hand to hand wasn't one of his more involved skills, but he would be damned before he'd simply lay down and give up his grip on life.

It made no sense. How could following the path to victory kill him? As much as he pried and worried at the thought, it always fizzled out for lack of an answer.

Yet in and of itself, it wasn't that bad of an idea. _It must have something to do with dueling._ After all, he was a duelist. What didn't have to do with dueling in his life? Perhaps he would defeat someone who wanted to kill him because of it. As ridiculous as the thought was, he couldn't see that many other ways for it to happen.

He also couldn't see a reason for him to change his ways. Whatever the end result was, he would not only make his theoretical assassin work for his blood, but he would make certain that whoever it was never forgot the fight once it was over with. _Perhaps I could kill them too._ He'd never killed someone before, though Inukai had come close to dying from his injuries in their duel.

To be remembered, even after death. Now _that _was interesting. Hell Kaiser turned that thought over and over, a slow smile touching his lips. He'd never really thought about it before. There was too much else to do in his life.

And despite how enticing the thought was, there was _still_ too much to do. Genex wasn't over. There was still (possibly) some duelist who wasn't Juudai worthy of dueling against him here. Even Saiou didn't quite fit the bill, not after that look of pure death. Ryou wanted to duel actual people, not whatever the hell _that_was. That was the kind of opponent that Juudai was better suited for.

_If there's no one else, I'll duel Juudai,_ he decided. Juudai's own deck had changed since their last duel. Seeing how those Neo-Spacians worked against his Cyber Darks would be worthwhile. _Unless he's off saving the world._ It certainly wouldn't be the first time.

He hadn't decided what he would do if that were the case, though. Tachibana's offer still appealed to him on some level. He'd have to see how the other made it through Genex. Though Juudai would probably duel him first. Those who could see spirits were often drawn to one another.

A tingle down his spine encouraged him to look up. Well, well, well. He hadn't seen _her _in a while. He wondered if she'd changed her deck any after Shou defeated her.

"I saw your duel against Saiou!" Kouchou Ran declared, her duel disk activated. "Do you want to try your luck against me, Ryou-sama?"

Once he'd lost a duel and hadn't been able to win again for months. The concept of losing to a duelist without respect had shattered his mind. Now he smiled and lifted his duel disk in return. "There is no luck in my dueling." There was only power.

And if that power lead to death, then so be it. It was a price he was willing to pay.

"Duel!"

**The End**


End file.
